Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: FredTA on 27/04/2014 18:00:04
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I've been reading theories about how our universe could all just one giant computer simulation, or even a video game.
There's already proof such as the observable pixilation of the universe and the fact that things behave differently when we observe them. I
had a thought that may contribute to the proof.
Touch two of your fingers together. No matter how slow you do it, they still meet. However if you keep "zooming in" on the space between your fingers, the distance between them will get bigger. In theory you could just "zoom in" forever, meaning the distance between your two fingers would be infinite, so the question is: how do your two fingers ever meet?
My solution to this is that there is in fact not infinite space between objects, but rather all matter in our universe is arranged in a tiny, smaller than sub-atomic grid, just like objects in a video game is arranged in a grid. This means that when two objects are about to touch, at a tiny, unremarkable scale, they snap into place, eliminating the need to travel an infinite distance.
What do people think of this idea?
Regards
Fred T.A
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Simulation of what?
Now instead of touching fingers, consider a finger travelling towards a sheet of paper. Apply your infinte zoom process. The theory works fine until the point at which the finger emerges from the other side of the sheet. So you somehow have to account for the fact that it has broken the membrane and passed through it without, according to your hypothetical observations, actually touching it.
Alas, Zeno's Paradox died with the first casualty of Zeno's hypothetical arrow.
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Simulation of life and the universe.
Exactly. How could it touch the sheet in the first place, right? The idea of a grid would skip the infinite gap between finger and paper, meaning the finger would begin to pass through the sheet by continuing to proceed one grid space at a time, gradually stretching the membrane until breaking point.
If (hypothetically) this theory was reality, you're right in saying that it could not have broken the membrane, as it never touched it, if there wasn't a grid.
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... Touch two of your fingers together. No matter how slow you do it, they still meet. However if you keep "zooming in" on the space between your fingers, the distance between them will get bigger. In theory you could just "zoom in" forever, meaning the distance between your two fingers would be infinite, so the question is: how do your two fingers ever meet?
My solution to this is that there is in fact not infinite space between objects, but rather all matter in our universe is arranged in a tiny, smaller than sub-atomic grid, just like objects in a video game is arranged in a grid. This means that when two objects are about to touch, at a tiny, unremarkable scale, they snap into place, eliminating the need to travel an infinite distance.
What do people think of this idea?
Interesting thought; but as it happens you can't just zoom in forever without things getting lumpy. At small scales, stuff is made of atoms and molecules. Solid stuff like a finger is held together by molecular bonds, and when two fingers come together, they don't really meet because their bumpy molecular surfaces repel each other. At even smaller scales than molecules, atoms are made up of mostly empty space, and the particles involved are tiny, intrinsically fuzzy and tricky to pin down. Quantum field theory describes what the world is made up of better than any theory so far, and it doesn't work like your suggestion. That doesn't entirely eliminate the simulation idea, because in some versions, at a scale way smaller than any subatomic particle, spacetime itself is quantised. But for now, it's speculation - until they can figure out some way to test one of these versions at realistic scales.
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The fact is, of course, that atoms are mostly space, and atomic-level interactions are indeed quantised. But neither statement has any "simulation" implications. Nor are simulations necessarily quantised.
It's worth distinguishing between "infinite" and "infinitesimal"!
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you just need principles laws and properties. Define them and turn on the set. Actually, the set gets 'turned on' as you succeed in defining them :) As defined inside it.