The surprise theory of everything

The surprise theory of everything: The question is whether we can express the whole of physics simply by enumerating possible and impossible processes in a given situation. This is very different from how physics is usually phrased, in both the classical and quantum regimes, in terms of states of systems and equations that describe how those states change in time. The blind alleys down which the standard approach can lead are easiest to understand in classical physics, where the dynamical equations we derive allow a whole host of processes that patently do not occur - the ones we have to conjure up the laws of thermodynamics expressly to forbid, such as dye molecules reclumping spontaneously in water...

Apply this logic more generally, and time ceases to exist as an independent, fundamental entity, but one whose flow is determined purely in terms of allowed and disallowed processes. With it go problems such as that I alluded to earlier, of why the universe started in a state of low entropy. If states and their dynamical evolution over time cease to be the question, then anything that does not break any transformational rules becomes a valid answer.

Hologram revolution: The theory changing all physics - physics-math - 13 July 2011 - New Scientist

Hologram revolution: The theory changing all physics: Leonard Susskind of Stanford University in California, one of the original architects of the holographic principle, describes the duality as the "new orthodoxy". Skenderis is convinced that we are only just beginning to see its potential. "If we look forward to 50 years from now, we will see this period as a precursor to a time when physics is totally reformulated in the language of holography," he says. "Once the theory is properly fleshed out, we will be able to apply it to almost any problem."

Fermilab is Building a 'Holometer' to Determine Once and For All Whether Reality Is Just an Illusion | Popular Science

Fermilab is Building a 'Holometer' to Determine Once and For All Whether Reality Is Just an Illusion | Popular Science: But unlike conventional interferometers, the holometer will measure for noise or interference in spacetime itself. It’s actually composed of two interferometers – built one atop the other – that produce data on the amount of interference or “holographic noise.” Since they are measuring the same volume of spacetime, they should show the same amount of correlated jitter in the fabric of the universe. It will produce the first direct experimental insight into the fundamental nature of space and time, and there’s no telling what researchers delving into that data might find out about the holographic nature of the universe.

A New View Of Gravity - Science News

A New View Of Gravity - Science News: "Gravity, Verlinde asserts, is similar in the sense that masses move in ways that also produce more probable, higher-entropy arrangements.

Verlinde is not the first to relate gravity to thermodynamics. In 1995, Ted Jacobson of the University of Maryland demonstrated that the equations of Einstein’s general theory of relativity could be derived from basic thermodynamic principles. That result drew on work in the 1970s by Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking, who discovered parallels between ordinary thermodynamics and the physics of black holes, regions of such intense gravity that nothing that enters can ever exit. Bekenstein showed that a black hole has entropy, determined by all the matter and energy it has swallowed. Hawking demonstrated that black holes have a temperature (requiring the emission of Hawking radiation from a black hole’s surface). Since black holes are basically nothing more than pure gravity, describing them in terms of the thermo dynamic properties of entropy and temperature hinted at deeper links between gravity and thermodynamics."

Our world may be a giant hologram

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html

The Illusion of Gravity

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-illusion-of-gravity