Janna Levin

So Lenny coined this a hologram. People who take it very seriously say, well, again, maybe the interior of the black hole just doesn't exist. It's a holographic projection of this two-dimensional surface. In fact, maybe I should take it all the way and say, so are we. The whole universe is a holographic projection of a lower dimensional surface.

And so people have struggled, nobody's really landed it, to find a universe version of it. Oh, maybe there's a boundary to the universe where all the information is encoded and this entire three-dimensional reality that's so compelling and so convincing is actually just a holographic projection. Juan Maldacena did something absolutely brilliant.

And so people have struggled, nobody's really landed it, to find a universe version of it. Oh, maybe there's a boundary to the universe where all the information is encoded and this entire three-dimensional reality that's so compelling and so convincing is actually just a holographic projection. Juan Maldacena did something absolutely brilliant.

And so people have struggled, nobody's really landed it, to find a universe version of it. Oh, maybe there's a boundary to the universe where all the information is encoded and this entire three-dimensional reality that's so compelling and so convincing is actually just a holographic projection. Juan Maldacena did something absolutely brilliant.

It's the most highly cited paper in the history of physics. It was published in the late 90s. It has a very opaque title that would not lead you to believe it's as revelatory as it is. But he was able to show that a universe like in a box with gravity in it, it's not the same universe we observe, doesn't matter. It's just a hypothetical called an anti-de Sitter space.

It's the most highly cited paper in the history of physics. It was published in the late 90s. It has a very opaque title that would not lead you to believe it's as revelatory as it is. But he was able to show that a universe like in a box with gravity in it, it's not the same universe we observe, doesn't matter. It's just a hypothetical called an anti-de Sitter space.

It's the most highly cited paper in the history of physics. It was published in the late 90s. It has a very opaque title that would not lead you to believe it's as revelatory as it is. But he was able to show that a universe like in a box with gravity in it, it's not the same universe we observe, doesn't matter. It's just a hypothetical called an anti-de Sitter space.

This universe in a box, it has gravity, it has black holes, it has everything gravity can do in it. On its boundary, is a theory with no gravity, a universe that can be described with no gravity at all, so no black holes, and no information loss problem. And they're equivalent. That the interior universe in a box is a holographic projection of this quantum mechanics on the boundary.

This universe in a box, it has gravity, it has black holes, it has everything gravity can do in it. On its boundary, is a theory with no gravity, a universe that can be described with no gravity at all, so no black holes, and no information loss problem. And they're equivalent. That the interior universe in a box is a holographic projection of this quantum mechanics on the boundary.

This universe in a box, it has gravity, it has black holes, it has everything gravity can do in it. On its boundary, is a theory with no gravity, a universe that can be described with no gravity at all, so no black holes, and no information loss problem. And they're equivalent. That the interior universe in a box is a holographic projection of this quantum mechanics on the boundary.

Pure quantum mechanics, purely unitary, no loss of information. None of this stuff could possibly be true. There can't be loss of information if this dictionary really works, if the interior is a hologram, a projection of the boundary. I know that's a lot.

Pure quantum mechanics, purely unitary, no loss of information. None of this stuff could possibly be true. There can't be loss of information if this dictionary really works, if the interior is a hologram, a projection of the boundary. I know that's a lot.

Pure quantum mechanics, purely unitary, no loss of information. None of this stuff could possibly be true. There can't be loss of information if this dictionary really works, if the interior is a hologram, a projection of the boundary. I know that's a lot.

Well, what it would mean for us is that information can't be lost even if we don't know how to show it in the description in which there are black holes. It means it can't possibly be lost because it's equivalent to this description with no gravity in it at all, no event horizons, no black holes, just quantum mechanics.

Well, what it would mean for us is that information can't be lost even if we don't know how to show it in the description in which there are black holes. It means it can't possibly be lost because it's equivalent to this description with no gravity in it at all, no event horizons, no black holes, just quantum mechanics.

Well, what it would mean for us is that information can't be lost even if we don't know how to show it in the description in which there are black holes. It means it can't possibly be lost because it's equivalent to this description with no gravity in it at all, no event horizons, no black holes, just quantum mechanics.

So it really strongly suggested that quantum mechanics was going to win in this battle, but it didn't show exactly how it was going to win. So then comes ER equals EPR. A visual way to imagine what this means. So ER has to do with little wormholes. EPR, Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, has to do with quantum entanglement.

So it really strongly suggested that quantum mechanics was going to win in this battle, but it didn't show exactly how it was going to win. So then comes ER equals EPR. A visual way to imagine what this means. So ER has to do with little wormholes. EPR, Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, has to do with quantum entanglement.

So it really strongly suggested that quantum mechanics was going to win in this battle, but it didn't show exactly how it was going to win. So then comes ER equals EPR. A visual way to imagine what this means. So ER has to do with little wormholes. EPR, Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, has to do with quantum entanglement.

The idea was, well, maybe the stuff that's interior to the black hole is quantum entangled, like EPR, quantum entangled, with the Hawking radiation outside the black hole that's escaping. And that quantum entanglement is what allows you to extract the information because it's not actually physically moving from the interior to the exterior. It's just subtle quantum entanglement.