Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Aden's philosophy column


The other day I was thinking about my pearls of wisdom and stuff and I thought, I could do a much better job of philosophy than that turkey Ade. So I've decided to set my pearls of wisdom to the side for now and do my first fully fledged philosophy column.

Now just suppose for a moment that a black hole's event horizon encloses a volume, and more massive black holes have larger event horizons and enclose larger volumes. The most massive black hole which can fit in a given region is the one whose event horizon corresponds exactly to the boundary of the given region. Are you with me so far?

Ok good, so then greater mass entails greater entropy. Therefore the maximal limit of entropy for any ordinary region of space is directly proportional to the surface area of the region, not its volume.

Ah ha, I hear you say "This is counter-intuitive because entropy is an extensive variable, being directly proportional to mass, which is proportional to volume (all else being equal, including the density of the mass)".

However! And this is the clever bit. If the entropy of ordinary mass (not just black holes) is also proportional to area, then this implies that volume itself is somehow illusory: that mass occupies area, not volume, and so the universe is really a hologram which is isomorphic to the information "inscribed" on its boundaries

Ha! Take that Ade!!!