Physicists have a hard time explaining why the Universe started out with certain conditions. The values that allow stars, planets, and eventually life to develop are taken into account by the physical laws and constants.

The force of the Universe is not as strong as theory suggests, allowing matter to clump together rather than being torn apart.

We shouldn't be surprised that at least one Universe has turned out to be ours because we live in an infinite multiverse. Our Universe is a computer simulation with someone fine- tuning the conditions.

Information physics supports the idea that space-time and matter aren't fundamental phenomena. Our experience of space-time comes from bits of information that make up the physical reality.

The temperature comes from the collective movement of atoms. There is no one atom that has temperature.

It is possible that our entire universe is a computer simulation.

The idea hasn't changed in a long time. Wheeler suggested in 1989 that the Universe is fundamentally mathematical and can be seen as coming from information. The famous aphorism was created by him.

The simulation hypothesis was formulated by Nick Bostrom. It's argued that we live in a simulation.

Simulations should be indistinguishable from reality if an advanced civilization reaches a point where their technology is so advanced.

The simulation hypothesis was taken to the next level by a physicist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Empirical evidence

Some evidence suggests that our physical reality could be a simulation of a virtual reality.

Information processing will be the basis of any virtual reality world. Everything is a minimum size that can't be divided further.

The world of atoms and particles is governed by the theory of quantum mechanics. There is a unit of time and energy.

Elementary particles are the smallest units of matter. Our world is small.

The laws of physics are similar to computer code lines that a simulation would follow to execute the program. There are mathematical equations, numbers, and geometric patterns in the world.

The speed of light is the maximum speed limit in our universe. The processing power limit is the speed limit of the processor.

An overload of a processor can slow down computer processing. Einstein's theory shows that time slows in the vicinity of a black hole.

The simulation hypothesis has a lot of support from quantum mechanics. Nature isn't real if you don't observe or measure the particles. They are in various states at the same time. Virtual reality needs something to happen.

It's possible to manipulate two particles at the same time, with the effect being seemingly faster than the speed of light, which should be impossible.

It's possible that this is explained by the fact that all points should be roughly the same distance away from a central processor. If two particles were created in a simulation, they wouldn't be the same.

Possible experiments

If the Universe is a simulation, what kind of experiments could we use to prove it?

It's reasonable to think that a simulation Universe would have a lot of information. The code is represented by these bits. The simulation hypothesis will be proved if these information bits are detected.

The proposed mass-energy-information (M/E/I) equivalency principle states that information bits must have a small mass. We can find something to look for.

I think that information is a fifth form of matter in the universe. The expected information content is calculated by me. These studies led to the testing of these predictions.

The information inside elementary particles is erased by letting them and their anti-particles destroy in a flash of energy.

I have predicted the exact range of expected frequencies. The experiment is doable with our existing tools, and we have launched a site to raise funds for it.

There are more than one approach. John Barrow believed that a simulation would build up minor computational errors which the programmers would need to fix in order to keep the simulation going.

He suggested that we could experience such fixing as the results of the experiment suddenly change. Monitoring the values of these constants is one of the options.

Our reality is one of the biggest mysteries out there. If we take the simulation hypothesis seriously, we have a better chance of proving or refuting it.

Vopson is a senior lecturer in physics at the university.

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