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[–] oedipusaurus_rex 0 points 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.

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[–] 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.

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[–] 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).