Scientists finally prove we are not living in a computer simulation like in The Matrix

Just when you were hoping the world’s recent string of disturbing events were merely a result of us living in a computer simulation akin to The Matrix, scientists have gone and proven otherwise. Way to get our hopes up, Elon. 

While simultaneously disproving concerns that scientists don’t waste valuable time, a pair of researchers at Oxford University also went out of their way to demolish the theory science fiction fans and modern philosophers have debated for decades: that humans are nothing more than pickled brains floating in a vat of jelly, fed a false sense of reality through an accumulation of wires by alien overlords. 

After perfecting some complex sums, Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhi came to the conclusion that such an event is “impossible” because storing information about a couple of hundred electrons would need computer memory that requires far more atoms that even exist in the universe.

This is apparently due to something known as the quantum Hall effect, which causes the simulation to become exponentially more complex as the number of particles increases.

“If the growth is exponential, or in other words if for every extra particle one has to double the number of processors, memory, etc., then this task becomes intractable,” the researchers said.

The fresh findings pours water on something Elon Musk believes could be a sinister answer to the Fermi Paradox, that is, the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates for the existence of extraterrestrial civilisation.

Tesla and Space X’s CEO previously stated there is a “99.99% chance” that the universe we inhabit is a computer simulation. 

“The absence of any noticeable life may be an argument in favour of us being in a simulation,” he said. “Like when you’re playing an adventure game, and you can see the stars in the background, but you can’t ever get there. If it’s not a simulation, then maybe we’re in a lab and there’s some advanced alien civilisation that’s just watching how we develop, out of curiosity, like mould in a Petri dish.”

Professor Brian Cox, who concocted the theory that our entire universe may have been created by a “super-intelligent computer programmer” is also bound to be upset by the findings.

Nevertheless, there is something we can be happy about. We won’t wake up  in a tub of slime with a hole in our neck when it is our time to leave Earth. Hopefully.