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[–]Apathy1 point
4 points
5 points
(+5|-1)
ago
(edited ago)
Upper limit of atoms in the universe is 4*10^81. 1Kb is 1024 bytes. 1Mb is over a million bytes. 1Gb is over a billion bytes. 1Tb is over a trillion bytes. Then you get to petabytes. Around 500 petabytes is the size of the internet (although this is based on old info, and it could be much bigger these days). That's a 1 with 15 zeroes behind it. We're talking about a 4 with 81 zeroes behind it. Even if humanity can keep improving technology without hitting a limit, there's no way in hell we could ever account for every atom in the universe. And you can forget about simulating the entire universe, that would require more processing power than there are resources in the actual universe. Simply put, we would need a couple universes just to simulate one.
Does this disprove the idea that we're living in a simulation or is there a way that we could still be living in a simulation? For example the universe isn't as big as we think it is so it wouldn't take up as many resources.
Well it really doesn't disprove it. We live in a universe of a certain size, but that doesn't mean there aren't bigger universes out there. Just look at the size of our sun versus the largest stars. Hell even super massive black holes will shit on our star. Here's an example.
It depends on the scale that you are trying to model the universe on.
If you want to do it at a stellar scale (only modeling the position of stars and the effect of their gravity) it's not too bad. We have actually done this on the scale of the known universe.
If you are wanting to make a simulation that people can "live" in then you would need an incredibly large computer (bigger than you are thinking, I mean the literal definition of incredible) and you would need to find a way to dissipate that much heat.
If you wanted to do it at the atomic scale then you would need a computer so massive that it would have an event horizon.
All of this is assuming we're using modern computers to run the simulation.
[–]profanion[S]0 points
0 points
0 points
(+0|-0)
ago
I actually only want to know the size of the program that would activate the simulation, not the processing power and size of storage to run the program itself.
Again, it depends on the scale you are wanting to do this on. Also, the size of the storage needed to house the program is dependent on how large the program is.
What I'm getting at is this: If you want to model the interaction of every atom in the universe (atomic scale program), the program would be so large that to house it you would need enough hard drives to create a black hole if you were somehow able to get them into one place. I could write that out as 2.56 * 10^100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000... etc etc etc. Gb, but that's meaningless. The number is so large that it defies comprehension. If I say the storage needed would create a black hole, it still defies comprehension, but some people might think they have a sense of the size of the program (they are underestimating it).
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[–] harry_nash 2 points 8 points 10 points (+10|-2) ago
42.
[–] Apathy 1 point 4 points 5 points (+5|-1) ago (edited ago)
Upper limit of atoms in the universe is 4*10^81. 1Kb is 1024 bytes. 1Mb is over a million bytes. 1Gb is over a billion bytes. 1Tb is over a trillion bytes. Then you get to petabytes. Around 500 petabytes is the size of the internet (although this is based on old info, and it could be much bigger these days). That's a 1 with 15 zeroes behind it. We're talking about a 4 with 81 zeroes behind it. Even if humanity can keep improving technology without hitting a limit, there's no way in hell we could ever account for every atom in the universe. And you can forget about simulating the entire universe, that would require more processing power than there are resources in the actual universe. Simply put, we would need a couple universes just to simulate one.
[–] Dashippy 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Does this disprove the idea that we're living in a simulation or is there a way that we could still be living in a simulation? For example the universe isn't as big as we think it is so it wouldn't take up as many resources.
[–] Apathy 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Well it really doesn't disprove it. We live in a universe of a certain size, but that doesn't mean there aren't bigger universes out there. Just look at the size of our sun versus the largest stars. Hell even super massive black holes will shit on our star. Here's an example.
[–] NassTee ago
Our universe isn't necessarily the same as the one in which we are simulated. Any or all of the rules we know could be completely different out there.
[–] oedipusaurus_rex 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
It depends on the scale that you are trying to model the universe on.
If you want to do it at a stellar scale (only modeling the position of stars and the effect of their gravity) it's not too bad. We have actually done this on the scale of the known universe.
If you are wanting to make a simulation that people can "live" in then you would need an incredibly large computer (bigger than you are thinking, I mean the literal definition of incredible) and you would need to find a way to dissipate that much heat.
If you wanted to do it at the atomic scale then you would need a computer so massive that it would have an event horizon.
All of this is assuming we're using modern computers to run the simulation.
[–] profanion [S] ago
I actually only want to know the size of the program that would activate the simulation, not the processing power and size of storage to run the program itself.
[–] oedipusaurus_rex ago
Again, it depends on the scale you are wanting to do this on. Also, the size of the storage needed to house the program is dependent on how large the program is.
What I'm getting at is this: If you want to model the interaction of every atom in the universe (atomic scale program), the program would be so large that to house it you would need enough hard drives to create a black hole if you were somehow able to get them into one place. I could write that out as 2.56 * 10^100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000... etc etc etc. Gb, but that's meaningless. The number is so large that it defies comprehension. If I say the storage needed would create a black hole, it still defies comprehension, but some people might think they have a sense of the size of the program (they are underestimating it).
[–] 6285092? ago
I suspect a religion will form around this.
[–] Bfwilley ago
Comma delimited or Binary?
[–] CarthOSassy 1 point 0 points 1 point (+1|-1) ago
No one has ever proven that there is a finite set odd deterministic rules underlying reality. We do not know that such and equation even could exist.
So no one knows how large it would be, if there even could be such a thing.
[–] Hamderella ago
2.1k