Do We Live in the Matrix? They could create a plethora of pet universes, vastly outnumbering the real cosmos. This thought led philosopher Nick Bostrom at the University of Oxford to conclude in 2. Since there seemed no way to tell the difference between the two possibilities, however, bookmakers did not have to lose sleep working out the precise odds. Learning the Truth. That changed in 2. John D. Barrow, professor of mathematical sciences at Cambridge University, suggested that an imperfect simulation of reality would contain detectable glitches. Just like your computer, the universe’s operating system would need updates to keep working. As the simulation degrades, Barrow suggested, we might see aspects of nature that are supposed to be static — such as the speed of light or the fine- structure constant that describes the strength of the electromagnetic force — inexplicably drift from their “constant” values. Last year, Beane and colleagues suggested a more concrete test of the simulation hypothesis. Most physicists assume that space is smooth and extends out infinitely. But physicists modeling the early universe cannot easily re- create a perfectly smooth background to house their atoms, stars and galaxies. Instead, they build up their simulated space from a lattice, or grid, just as television images are made up from multiple pixels. The team calculated that the motion of particles within their simulation, and thus their energy, is related to the distance between the points of the lattice: the smaller the grid size, the higher the energy particles can have. That means that if our universe is a simulation, we’ll observe a maximum energy amount for the fastest particles. And as it happens, astronomers have noticed that cosmic rays, high- speed particles that originate in far- flung galaxies, always arrive at Earth with a specific maximum energy of about 1. The simulation’s lattice has another observable effect that astronomers could pick up. If space is continuous, then there is no underlying grid that guides the direction of cosmic rays — they should come in from every direction equally.
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube. Digg is the homepage of. Boggling Facts About The Universe, Realizes His Whole Life Has. If we live in a simulation based on a lattice, however, the team has calculated that we wouldn’t see this even distribution. If physicists do see an uneven distribution, it would be a tough result to explain if the cosmos were real. Astronomers need much more cosmic ray data to answer this one way or another. For Beane, either outcome would be fine. But that’s because Beane imagines the simulators as driven purely to understand the cosmos, with no desire to interfere with their simulations. Unfortunately, our almighty simulators may instead have programmed us into a universe- size reality show — and are capable of manipulating the rules of the game, purely for their entertainment. In that case, maybe our best strategy is to lead lives that amuse our audience, in the hope that our simulator- gods will resurrect us in the afterlife of next- generation simulations. The weird consequences would not end there. Our simulators may be simulations themselves — just one rabbit hole within a linked series, each with different fundamental physical laws. That’s a depressing thought!” says Beane. This cosmic ray test may help reveal whether we are just lines of code in an artificial Matrix, where the established rules of physics may be bent, or even broken. But if learning that truth means accepting that you may never know for sure what’s real — including yourself — would you want to know? There is no turning back, Neo: Do you take the blue pill, or the red pill?
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