The Holographic Universe: When a Small Film Still Holds Traces of the Whole World

Cut an ordinary photograph in half and half the scene disappears. A hologram behaves differently. It does not record an image as separate coloured dots. It records how light waves from an object meet a reference light wave. When the right light shines through the developed film, the eye sees a three-dimensional image. A small cut piece can still reconstruct the whole scene, although the image becomes less clear and the viewing angle narrows.

That fact is the seed of the holographic-universe story. It suggests that information about a whole might not be stored in one simple location. A part may retain traces of the wider structure. In 1991, American writer Michael Talbot brought the idea to a large audience in The Holographic Universe. He joined holographic technology, physicist David Bohm’s ideas, Karl Pribram’s model of the brain, and spiritual experience into one worldview: the world we see may be the visible expression of a deeper layer of information.