According to Popular Mechanics, physicist Melvin Vopson at the University of Portsmouth has spent the last six years building empirical evidence for the simulation hypothesis. His latest paper, published in AIP Advances in April 2024, proposes that gravitational attraction reduces information entropy, essentially imposing computational order. This work builds on his 2019 “mass-energy-information-equivalence principle” and a bold postulate he calls the “Second Law of Infodynamics.” Vopson’s journey into this field was unexpected, stemming from his background in data storage at Seagate and was further inspired by analyzing SARS-CoV-2 mutation data during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, where he also observed decreasing information entropy.
The Gravity Glitch Theory
Here’s the thing: this idea flips a lot of conventional physics on its head. Vopson is essentially linking gravity to information theory, suggesting it’s not a fundamental force but an emergent one. Think of it like this: in a simulated reality, the ultimate goal is efficiency—you need to optimize processing power and data storage. If objects with associated information (which, wild as it sounds, Vopson argues has a tiny, measurable mass) are scattered randomly, that’s a high-entropy, computationally expensive state. Gravity, by pulling them together, reduces that chaos. It’s like a cosmic defragmentation tool for the universe’s hard drive. This ties into Erik Verlinde’s 2011 concept of “entropic gravity,” but Vopson is pushing it into the realm of simulation evidence.
From Hard Drives to the Cosmos
So how does a condensed matter physicist end up here? It seems like Vopson’s entire career was a setup. His time at Seagate, working on digital storage tech, gave him a deep, practical understanding of information compression and optimization—the very things a universe-scale simulation would need. Then, in 2022, he looked at COVID-19 mutations and saw a pattern: information entropy decreased when the virus mutated. In a simulation, even biological evolution might follow optimization rules to lower computational load. It’s a staggering leap, but that’s the connection he’s making. His “Second Law of Infodynamics” basically inverts the classic Second Law of Thermodynamics for information systems, demanding order increase over time. Talk about ambitious.
Is This Even Science?
Now, let’s be clear. Vopson himself is the first to admit this is a giant “if.” He puts question marks in his paper titles and writes disclaimers. This is firmly in the realm of hypothesis, not proven theory. But that’s kind of the point he’s making. We have to put these wild ideas out there to test and, most likely, disprove them. That’s how science progresses. The surprising part? He says he’s gotten little pushback so far. Maybe the physics community is intrigued, or maybe they’re just waiting for more concrete math. Either way, it’s a fascinating thought experiment that forces us to question the very fabric of reality. Could gravity be the clue we’ve been missing? Or is it just another dead end in a long line of metaphysical speculation?
Why Bold Ideas Matter
Look, nobody’s saying we live in The Matrix. But Vopson’s work, however outlandish, serves a crucial purpose. It forces interdisciplinary collision—smashing together information theory, thermodynamics, particle physics, and cosmology. Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from connecting fields that never talk to each other. By proposing gravity as an information-management tool, he’s offering a new lens on dark energy, quantum gravity, and black holes. Even if the simulation hypothesis is ultimately wrong, the math and principles developed along the way could unlock something real. And in a field studying the fundamental rules of everything, that’s a gamble worth taking. After all, if you’re not occasionally wrong, you’re probably not thinking big enough.
