A fun explanation of quantum uncertainty
Suppose that we lived in a Matrix-like world. A computer-simulated world. It doesn’t have to be exactly like the Matrix — we (as entities) could be entirely within the system, we could be programs. Anyway, imagine that we are all part of a huge computer program.
Think about how complex this system is. According to Wikipedia, the universe contains about 10^80 atoms. Each of those atoms has a number of physical parameters (energy, velocity, angular momentum, etc.) and is also made up of a number of smaller particles (electrons, protons, neutrons) which also have those sorts of parameters. There are also a large quantity of free particles in the universe, mostly photons and neutrinos (and gluons?). I would guess that there are a lot more of those than there are atoms, but I’m honestly not sure. So anyway, even assuming that there’s nothing at a smaller scale than quarks (i.e. quarks and leptons really are the fundamental particles) and that atoms dominate, there are well over 10^80 parameters in the system. Furthermore, we are able to make observations at very small time scales. According to Wikipedia again, the smallest time scale we have been able to measure is on the order of 10^-18 (quantum theory says that the smallest measurable time scale should be on the order of Planck time, or 10^-44 seconds). So that means that a simulation of our universe requires the updating of 10^100 parameters per second in order in order to be consistent with our observations! That’s a googol!
Not only is the number of parameters huge, but the size of the universe is huge, and our ability to measure scale is pretty fine, so very large and high precision numbers would be needed to specify positions and velocities. This results in space requirements on the order of 10^120 or something. (I’m getting a bit lazy with the computations.) “Astronomical” hardly even describes this.
What’s the point? My fun little thought is that you could view quantum uncertainty as computational efficiency. When we’re not observing something, the computer can just remember approximately where it was. This saves a LOT of storage space. Additionally, when we observe one parameter of a particle too closely, the computer sacrifices some of the space used to store other parameters for that particle, which is where the Heisenberg uncertainty principle comes from. It makes a lot of sense from a computer science perspective!
I hereby propose this theory as an alternative to string theory. You’ll have to give me a bit more time to figure out how to use it to create a complete and consistent theory of quantum gravity, though.
