Is the universe a simulation? At first glance, the idea seems preposterous. Then again, within just a few decades, we’ve created entire digital worlds, AI has started to blur the line of what is real, and scientists have continued to probe the fabric of reality down to the quantum level. Factor in centuries or even millennia of similar technological progress—multiplied by the two trillion or so galaxies in the universe—and the idea that maybe our lived experience is simply a hyper-realistic simulation by some ultra-advanced alien species can feel a bit less like pure speculation and more head-scratchingly plausible.
The idea isn’t new—everything from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to the Wachowski sisters’ The Matrix ponders the concept. But this simulation theory has taken on some seriousness within the relatively new field of information physics, which aims to explore the role that information plays in the machinations of our universe. Some scientists have proposed that gravity arises from computation rules, while others suggest that information could explain things like dark matter and dark energy. But the team of researchers behind a new study from scientists at the University of British Columbia (UBC) now claims that they’ve mathematically proven that simulation theory is impossible. Their work is published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics.
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