The space we live in -- the space measured in miles, kilometers and parsecs -- has an internal structure of its own. Surprisingly, this structure is intimately related to quantum information theory, a field at the intersection of physics and computer science. To understand this connection, I exploit the holographic duality: an alternative description of the world as a gigantic hologram, which can be deduced from careful reasoning about the physics of black holes. The final conclusion is that the fabric of space encodes streaming compression protocols analogous to the one used by Netflix. Consequences of this assertion range from condensed matter physics to the most fundamental ways in which we conceptualize space and time.

 

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