We may all be holograms: NYC science festival brings exciting and wild science to the masses

At NYC sci fest, asking ‘What if we’re holograms?’

NEW YORK — In Brian Greene’s world, scientific reasoning rules all — and imagination leads to the most unlikely truths.

Physicist Greene and other “string theorists” are exploring a mindbending scenario. They think people and the world around us may be a 3-D holographic projection of two-dimensional data that exists outside the accessible universe.

Greene, who is a professor at Columbia University, and his wife, Tracy Day, are founders of the World Science Festival that opens Wednesday in New York. They want to build public excitement about science, even as the U.S. loses ground in some areas.

They hope the festival will wow teenagers and show them that science is a cool field to pursue. The number of highschoolers who passed Advanced Placement exams in science quadrupled between 1990 and 2008. But that hasn’t helped the decline in science literacy among U.S. teenagers. The U.S. fell from seventh to 13th place among 15-year-olds who took an international test between 2000 and 2006.