SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:27AM (2 children)
US as in Earth, humans. Doubt they simulating a world to study bears.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:11AM
"Man always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars, and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons." (Douglas Adams)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @02:02PM
I dunno, it could be they simulated billions of solar systems to see what conditions would most likely lead to life, then to intelligent life. Pray that no intelligent life arises in our universe, or they might pull the plug! Also, it could be equally fascinating to them to study water-bears.