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from the that's-what-we-want-you-to-think dept.
Physicists have "confirmed" that we "aren't" "living" in a computer "simulation":
Scientists have discovered that it's impossible to model the physics of our universe on even the biggest computer.
What that means is that we're probably not living in a computer simulation.
Theoretical physicists Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhin from the University of Oxford and the Hebrew University in Israel applied Monte Carlo simulations (computations used to generate probabilities) to quantum objects moving through various dimensions and found that classical systems cannot create the mathematics necessary to describe quantum systems. They showed this by proving that classical physics can't erase the sign problem, a particular quirk of quantum Monte Carlo simulations of gravitational anomalies (like warped spacetime, except in this case the researchers used an analogue from condensed matter physics).
Therefore, according to Ringel and Kovrizhin, classical computers most certainly aren't controlling our universe.
Which type of computers are we being simulated on?
Also at Newsweek.
Quantized gravitational responses, the sign problem, and quantum complexity (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1701758) (DX)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Thursday October 05 2017, @03:57AM
Skimming through the paper it does not seem that it is a formal proof that P (the set of all decision problems solvable by a deterministic Turing machine in polynomial time) is not equal to BQP (the set of all decision problems solvable by a bounded error quantum computer in polynomial time). All known classical algorithms for simulating an arbitrary quantum mechanical system take up to exponential time in the number of particles, since the way one normally describes a quantum system is by a Hilbert space with a dimension exponential in the number of particles. However, there is no formal proof that this really is the best we can do, i.e. the possibility remains that there might exist a classical algorithm capable of simulating quantum mechanical systems in polynomial time (if one were able to do this, it would amount to a proof that P = BQP). Quantum computers of course can simulate an arbitrary quantum mechanical system in polynomial time, i.e. quantum simulation is in BQP. The paper doesn't seem to touch on this, and by the way it also says nothing about the universe possibly being a simulation.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.