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2014 September 2
Holometer: A Microscope into Space and Time
Image Credit:
C. Hogan,
Fermilab
Explanation:
How different are space and time at very small scales?
To explore the unfamiliar domain of the miniscule
Planck scale -- where normally unnoticeable quantum effects might become dominant -- a newly developed instrument called the Fermilab
Holometer has begun operating at the
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab)
near Chicago,
Illinois,
USA.
The instrument seeks to determine if slight but simultaneous jiggles of a mirror in two directions expose a fundamental type of
holographic noise
that always exceeds a minimum amount.
Pictured above is one of the end mirrors of a
Holometer prototype.
Although the discovery of
holographic noise
would surely be groundbreaking, the dependence of such noise on a specific laboratory length scale would
surprise some
spacetime enthusiasts.
One reason for this is the
Lorentz Invariance
postulate of Einstein's
special relativity,
which states that all length scales should appear contracted to a relatively moving observer -- even the diminutive Planck
length.
Still,
the experiment is unique and many are
curious what the results will show.
Astrophysicists:
Browse 900+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library
Tomorrow's picture: stars of the butterfly
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(
MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (
UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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