"If the growth is exponential, or in other words if for every extra particle one has to double the number of processors, memory, etc., then this task becomes intractable," the researchers state.īostrom's hypothesis is that an advanced "posthuman" civilization will use enormous amounts of computing power to run realistic simulations of the universe. This is due to something known as the quantum Hall effect, which causes the simulation to become exponentially more complex as the number of particles increases. Research published by physicists Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhin in Science Advancessuggests that this notion of creating a massive-scale simulation using classical computers is "impossible." Researchers at the University of Oxford have now calculated that "even just to store the information about a few hundred electrons on a computer one would require a memory built from more atoms than there are in the universe." On the basis of this paper, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has stated there is a 99.99 percent chance that the universe we inhabit is a computer simulation, while physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says that is is "very likely." The simulation theory has been a staple of science fiction for decades and was detailed in a 2003 paper by the philosopher Nick Bostrom. Theoretical physicists have dispelled the idea we are living in a Matrix-style computer simulation, calculating that not all aspects of our reality can be simulated efficiently using computers.
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