That is real? Is the world really like that as we perceive it? Could reality just be a computer simulation? I mean, do we live in the Matrix? Impossible, according to quantum physics ; reality can never be perfectly simulated if quantum complexity is taken into account. This has been theoretically demonstrated by a team of scientists from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom), since starting from quantum theory, it is not possible to create a computer simulation of the world we live in.
In the Matrix, reality is a technological simulation created by super powerful computers. In light of this study published in the journal Science Advances, a computer powerful enough to contain the entire universe in all its vastness of -complex- manifestations could not be built. This reality, which became popular in 1999 after the premiere of the film starring Keanu Reeves, therefore continues to remain in the world of fiction.
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Fortunately, the plot of “The Matrix” is not only implausible, but impossible (not even with quantum computers, since a simulation with elements at the quantum level could only model a limited number of objects).
Quantum physicists Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhin, from the University of Oxford and the Hebrew University in Israel, reached this conclusion after trying a computer simulation of a quantum phenomenon that occurs in metals and found that such a simulation was impossible due to a matter of principle. Because the computing power needed to simulate the universe down to the quantum level would require a memory built from more atoms than there are in the universe itself. Tested with the Monte-Carlo method (QMC, quantum Monte Carlo ).
In other words, thanks to the immense complexity of the quantum phenomenon, the simulation of the universe as we currently understand it is fundamentally an insoluble problem. Thus, if for each extra particle the number of processors, memory, electricity … of the supercomputer had to be doubled, then this task becomes inadmissible because the quantum universe does not seem to have limits.
Despite how this may sound, it’s actually good news if you’ve ever considered that our world could be basically a computer simulation. This means that there is no way that a computer algorithm can make sense of the oddities that occur at the quantum level.
“Our work provides an intriguing link between two seemingly unrelated topics: gravitational anomalies and computational complexity. It also shows that Hall’s thermal conductance – Hall effect – is a true quantum effect: one for which no local classical analog exists.” , explains Zohar Ringel, co-author of the work.
Being concrete, these results do not show that the universe cannot be a computer simulation but, at least, it could not be a simulation that can be run on any computer system created by humans until now. Still want to pick the red pill?
Reference: “Quantized gravitational responses, the sign problem, and quantum complexity”, Science Advances, advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/9/e1701758 DOI: 10.1126 / sciadv.1701758
