According to New Scientist, physicist Melvin Vopson at the University of Portsmouth has proposed an experiment to test if we live in a simulated reality. His 2022 idea involves annihilating a particle-antiparticle pair, like an electron and positron, and measuring the photons produced. He predicts a specific frequency range that would suggest the universe is made of information bits. Vopson has also formulated a “second law of infodynamics,” which he claims gravity enforces to keep the cosmic simulation’s file size manageable. Despite his efforts, a crowdfunding attempt for the particle experiment failed. Other scientists, like astrophysicist Franco Vazza, are deeply skeptical, arguing that simulating our universe would require impossible amounts of energy.
The Physics of a Glitch
Here’s the thing about the simulation hypothesis: it’s notoriously unfalsifiable. It’s a philosophical zombie that just won’t die because, well, how do you prove you’re not in a simulation? Vopson’s attempt to drag it into the lab is what makes this interesting, even if it seems bonkers. His core assumption is that if this is all a simulation, then the universe’s fundamental currency isn’t matter or energy—it’s information. That’s not a new idea in theoretical physics, but taking it to its literal extreme is.
So his proposed experiment is basically looking for the digital footprint of a particle. If annihilating it produces energy in a very specific way that matches his calculations for information erasure, he thinks it’s evidence we’re in a computer. It’s a wild swing. And look, he couldn’t even get it funded. But you have to admire the audacity of trying to turn a Matrix plot point into a peer-reviewed study. It’s the kind of high-risk, probably-zero-reward science that either makes you a visionary or a footnote.
Gravity as a Zip File
Now, Vopson’s other angle—this “second law of infodynamics”—is maybe even more intriguing. The classic second law of thermodynamics says disorder always increases. But Vopson argues that in an informational universe, the information content must stay steady or decrease to balance that. And then he looks at the cosmos and sees a problem: gravity has clearly made things more ordered over billions of years, creating complex structures from smooth gas.
His solution? Gravity isn’t a force pulling things together; it’s a cosmic compression algorithm. It’s the simulation’s way of zipping files to prevent the universe’s hard drive from filling up. I mean, come on. It’s a brilliantly creative metaphor. But is it science? Vazza, the skeptical astrophysicist, politely says applying information theory to physics is valuable, but this doesn’t prove we’re in a sim. In fact, his own work suggests the energy needed to run our universe would be… astronomical. Pun intended.
Could We Even Escape?
This all leads to the fun, paranoid questions. If we are in a sim, could we spot a glitch? The late John Barrow suggested looking for sudden, subtle changes in nature’s constants—like a programmer patching a bug. Weirdly, there’s a huge debate right now about whether the universe’s expansion rate has changed. Coincidence? Probably. As computer scientist Roman Yampolskiy points out, a real glitch-fix would be sudden, not a slow drift over billions of years.
And what about breaking out? Yampolskiy’s 2023 paper on escape strategies reads like sci-fi fan fiction. Maybe we build our own sim, create an AI, and watch it break out first. Or we try to get the attention of the programmers by constantly talking about the simulation hypothesis online. The best bet, he says, is an “assisted escape” from the outside. But honestly, who’s to say the beings running this thing would even want us to leave? Or that we’d survive outside the confines of our own code? It’s a terrifying thought.
Why This Idea Won’t Die
So why does the simulation hypothesis have such staying power, from Plato’s cave to Elon Musk’s Twitter feed? I think it’s because it’s the ultimate conspiracy theory—one that can explain everything, including the weirdness of quantum mechanics. Why does a particle not have a defined state until you look at it? Well, in a video game, objects aren’t rendered until you look at them! It’s a seductively simple answer to a century-old puzzle.
But that’s also its biggest weakness. It’s not a true scientific theory; it’s a narrative. It can be molded to fit any observation. Vopson’s work is a genuine attempt to put it to the test, and for that, it’s worth a nod. But until someone actually runs that particle experiment and gets a shocking result, it remains a fascinating thought experiment—a story we tell about our place in reality. And maybe that’s all it ever will be. After all, if we are in a simulation, would we really want to know? The truth might be more than we can handle.
