As much as I hate to play devil's advocate here, I don't think that paper backs up all the claims made by the Cosmos author. Here's why: 1. The result just shows that certain QMC problems take exponential time/resources to simulate.* This means that if we are living in a simulation, the universe simulating us would be exponentially larger than our universe, which does suggest that maybe Musk's argument that it's highly likely that we live in a simulation is flawed. But, it does not suggest that it's impossible for us to live in a simulation. 2. These results are only for classical algorithms. One of the big draws of quantumn computing is, well, efficient simulation of quantumn physics! So this paper doesn't eliminate the possibility we live in a simulation on a quantumn computer.** In short: simulation isn't impossible, and math/science has yet to determine that simulation must be difficult. Right now, we don't know an efficient simulation technique, but we also don't know that we can't find one. * But is the problem itself in EXP, or is it perhaps NP-hard and it's just that the only known algorithms to solve the problem take exponential time? Some reading leads me to believe it's "merely" NP-hard, which would mean that efficient (read: polynomial-time) simulation on a classical machine is possible if P=NP. ** Going off the assumption this problem is NP-hard, efficient polynomial-time quantumn simulation may not be a foregone conclusion. On the other hand, if efficient simulation implies that we are being simulated on a quantumn machine, what does that say about the "host" universe's physics?
We got chicks last Thursday! There are six of them and today they moved out of a big rubbermaid container into a bigger box so they can spread their wings. https://wobscale.chat/_matrix/media/v1/download/wobscale.chat/LcqfnsIDmoghYWuyUboInsOn They are SO PRETTY https://wobscale.chat/_matrix/media/v1/download/wobscale.chat/dVoBGbEbkkXNIrJjTfWiZqLn
I was raised on Ken Ham's stuff. The first science class I took that wasn't predicated on young earth creationism was in college. I tend to agree with Nye--believe whatever you want, but don't shelter your kids from learning other viewpoints. Oddly enough, young earth creationism ended up making me agnostic. In the circle of Christianity I grew up in, it was taught that 'if Christianity is true then it logically follows that the earth is 6,000 years old'. If P then Q, Not Q, therefore Not P. And, well, once you learn that biology is more than just classifying animals, it's not hard to show that the earth is a little bit more than 6,000 years old. QED.
I'm figuring out how to convert this drill press I have to run off a VFD, which will give me infinitely-variable speed. The motor is getting switched out too, so that will upgrade me from a washing machine motor to a 3/4 HP motor. Should make quite the drill press for around $200.