The claim comes from research which has been described as the “clearest evidence yet” everything in the cosmos is a hologram.
Physicists were investigating the inconsistencies between Einstein’s theory of gravity and quantum mechanics – how quantum mechanics takes over from relativity in extremes such as black holes.
To solve this, physicists propose the universe is merely a 3D hologram “painted” onto the horizon.
Yoshifumi Hyakutake of Ibaraki University in Japan has spent years trying to prove the original theory – a 1997 hypothesis from theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena.
Mr Maldacena’s ideas excited scientists as it allowed experts to solve inconsistencies between Einstein’s theory and quantum mechanics.
Scientists had described Mr Maldacena’s idea as being similar to a hologram of that on a credit card, with Kostas Skenderis, of the University of Southampton, explaining: “The idea is similar to that of ordinary holograms where a three-dimensional image is encoded in a two-dimensional surface, such as in the hologram on a credit card, but now it is the entire universe that is encoded in such a fashion."
In one study, Mr Hyakutake ran simulations to determine the energy of the inside of a black hole, its event horizon, its entropic nature and properties based on the string theory.
In the second study, Mr Hyakutake and his team calculated the “internal energy of the corresponding lower-dimensional cosmos with no gravity”, according to scientific journal Nature.
The two findings from both papers matched, which suggested the hologram theory is true.
Nature described the findings as the “clearest evidence yet” that the universe is holographic with Mr Maldacena, now of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, said "It seems to be a correct computation.