Vsauce's "Would Headlights Work at Light Speed?"
Somewhere near the end of the video, Michael puts forward the idea that our universe may be "a simulation created by some other intelligent species", but then proceeds to point out that a possible dismissal for this could be the existence of irrational numbers.
However, I myself have my own theories as to why this "simulation" may not be possible:
- Does this mean that there is another, different universe exterior to our own? Is it a 4-dimensional universe?
- If so, how large is the computer running the simulation? Is it perhaps several times larger than our 'observable' universe?
- How is the computer actually able to simulate a universe with ~10^80 atoms, each consisting of a number of quarks and electrons, at a step rate of (1/tP) step/second, where tP = Planck time?
- Now, let us make some assuumptions:
1. Hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in the universe, so for ease of calculation we will approximate that the universe consists of 10^80 hydrogen-1 atoms. This comes out as 4*10^80 particles to simulate (each atom consisting of three quarks, and one electron.)
2. The computer acts as a Laplace's Demon, advancing the simulation based on the positions and velocities of every particle in the universe. Because position and velocity are vectors, they could be internally represented as six addresses for each particle, or 24 for each atom.
3. Assuming that the computer represents data as 64-bit double-precision floating point, the amount of RAM required would be 6 * (4E+80) * 64 = 1.536*10^83 bits. Unless the 'exterior universe' the computer exists in has its own shortest measurable time, even shorter than
tP, it would be impossible to manipulate this many bits in one Planck time.
Tell me what you think, guys.