We don’t want to alarm you, but there’s a distinct possibility that our universe is nothing more than a huge computer simulation, that we’re all living in The Matrix, and none of this is real. But while stopping short of full-on human-machine warfare, a team of interested researchers at the University of Bonn is trying to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes by performing a measurement that should tell us if we’re stuck in a computer simulation.
This notion is based on quantum chromodynamics, which is the idea that describes how the strong nuclear force binds quarks and gluons together into protons and neutrons–and thus binds everything else together. We’re talking about very fundamental physics here, the process by which elementary particles form larger particles which form larger particles which form life, the universe, and everything.
via Popular Science
October 12, 2012
