Physicists from the Fermilab National Laboratory in Illinois have set up an experiment designed to prove one of the most intriguing scientific hypotheses: do we live in a hologram?

Or, is everything we think of as real, really an illusion in our brain?

This theory posits that just like characters on television, we aren't aware our 3D surroundings are encompassed within a 2D space. Scientists who support this theory say our idea of space could just be a massive illusion.

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Craig Hogan, director of Fermilab's Center for Partical Astrophysics said people usually think of space as represented by points and lines.

If life were a hologram, however, maybe it would be made out of waves, the same way as light and energy.

Hogan goes on to add that if 3D space is an illusion, then the information of the universe may be encoded in small objects that are 10 trillion trillion times smaller than an atom, creating one complete picture like pixels on a television.

To test this theory, Hogan has spent years building the "Holometer."

This device consists of two high-intensity laser beams, each roughly emitting one kilowatt or the equivalent of 200,000 laser pointers.

A beam is sent to a beam splitter and down to two perpendicular 40-meter arms.

This light is then reflected back to the beam splitter, combining the two beams. If the experiment is a success, the beams will create a fluctuation with the brightness, indicating motion.

This motion will indicate that space is constantly moving like a wave, and not like the points and lines we think it is.

If the theory is proven, it would have great impacts on our lives.

Proving this theory would mean that human life is in a computer, where all the information is stored in these little pixels.

As with any computer, however, there will be a limit to the amount of information it can handle.

The Holometer could also prove the "holographic principle," which tries to unify Einstein's theory of relativity that governs the cosmic scales of planets and heavenly bodies and quantum theory that governs the very small in scale.

TagsHolometer, Fermilab, Craig Hogan, Hologram, Holographic Principle