Fermilab is building a "Holometer" to test theory of holographic universe

The original post doesn't appear to misuse the technical term holographic. If a journalist twists their story into "reality is virtual" or "we might live in the matrix" then they would be reporting their sensationalist (perhaps intentional) misunderstanding, and this guy would be right. But I don't see how it applies to this article. It could be better explained, but it doesn't completely misrepresent the science. The holographic principle is legit physics.

Did you post this for the comments that explain the difference between the holographic principle and Star Trek?

That's a pretty good comment, but I thought I'll throw in what I think is a more concise and accurate summary of the holographic principle:

The number of fundamental degrees of freedom in a region of the universe scales with the surface area, not spatial volume, of the region considered. Any complete mathematical description of a D-dimensional region of the universe can be mapped to a mathematical model constrained to D-1 dimensions, with only the latter exhibiting the pleasing property that the number of degrees of freedom is proportional to the (generalized) volume.

Furthermore, it should be noted that the holographic principle is not much more than a conjecture supported by certain striking analogies between thermodynamics and the behavior of classical GR black holes. There is some additional circumstantial evidence from other areas of high energy theory, including string theory. There is no experimental evidence.

The really great thing the holographic principle has going for it is that it's a very general idea which isn't tied to any specific theory, and so it almost certainly has a better chance of being correct. Philosophically, it's very analogous to the principle of relativity put forward by Einstein. (For more on that philosophy, you can check out the accessible SEP article: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/)

Maybe the time-travelling cellphone guy carried some extra stuff with him?

They first (!) developed it in the 1800s. Nowadays it's done with lasers. Version 1.0 didn't have the laser beams.

I can just parse that as being sensible. Classical interferometers were first developed in the late 1800s, and if you put a laser in one then it will hit a beamsplitter.

(Similar: "In a steam locomotive, first developed in the early 1800s, a robot arm shovels coal into a furnace")

Not the best writing, though.

Readability (http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/) takes care of that.

So does Instapaper (http://www.instapaper.com/).