It seems to us, or we appear

First, the roots of the issue. Although the idea to put it mildly, an ancient (she at least 2400 years old), only in the late 1980s, these concepts with a light hand sf cinema began torit way to the masses. One of the pick-up was Nick Bostrom, then - Barry Dainton, then there were many who.
The idea of ​​Mr. Bostrom is that after the evolution of super-civilization "true humanity" (which we are not) faced a fragmented sources of its development and running a simulation that has to historical and anthropological study of human development. And we go, we live in this simulation, as only simulated, untrue objects.
Under this hypothesis, without interest, of course, a question: can we reliably learn that we are part of the model, and do not exist in reality. Omit the numerous philosophical recipes verify whether we live in a computer model or not, we can only say that most of them are doubtful (vaguely similar to trying to prove (non) existence of God).
Physics headed by Silas Bean of the University of Bonn (Germany), logged in addressing the problem from the flank. They suggested a feature of computer simulation on the basis of the mechanisms of the simulation of real processes, which seem to be most suitable for such a purpose today. The key simulation scientists thought the calculation on the basis of quantum chromodynamics in the cubic space-time on a discrete numerical grid with high spatial and temporal resolution. Now, these calculations (although limited) are available for the area with the side of a few quadrillion meters (femtometrov). As suggested by the authors, based on the current rate of growth of computational power of supercomputers (Moore's Law, etc.), after about 140 years, it will be possible to model the region with a side of meter. And then, of course, more.A very rough approximation, if instead of the Earth imagine (?) Universe, then we are in here such an artificial system of coordinates. (Photo Shutterstock.)
The challenge of any model of this kind, the authors should be types of radiation that carry information over long distances. Due to the limited spatial scale of such a simulation, as well as a number of other reasons in the existing in our universe cosmic rays must be the failure of the spectrum, the energy range in which the cosmic rays should not be observed. Scientists identify it with the limit Grayzena - Zatsepin - Kuzmin (GZK limit, relict cutoff of the spectrum). This limit is considered on the basis of theoretical considerations exist for cosmic rays with energies above 5 • 1019 eV. Of the Germans tried to calculate the resolution of the computer model, which is a part of the universe. Received the following: if all that is, with us, is part of the simulation, the fantastically high resolution: a step model of at least a trillion times less than one femtometra.
What is interesting, because the space-time model of the cubic, besides breaking the GZK cosmic rays, cosmic rays, coming from the "boundaries" of the universe, should be highly anisotropic - that is, from different angles (up), there should come a different number. Roughly speaking, the joint planes "cubes" - one, and from the centers of "faces" - another. Theoretically possible to register such anisotropy, though the work this requires very long.
The study, of course, fascinating, but it should be noted some shortcomings.
First, it limits the use Grayzena - Zatsepin - Kuzmin as an indicator of the existence of the model. It is no secret that, contrary to theory, the limit, the rays reach the Earth, the energy of which exceeds the above limit (ultra high energy particles). Because of them, even there was such a thing as the "paradox of the SLC." In fact, there are already theories about what this paradox can be resolved.
Second, it is not clear that it would have made the authors of such a hypothetical computer model used a cubic space-time. As well you can apply the scope and exclude the anisotropy of cosmic rays in principle. Or - a discrete numerical grid increments much smaller trillionth of femtometra, and then the spectrum will not be cut at all.
Third (and this is perhaps the most important), if you create a model (us and our universe) supercivilization really simulates the history of its kind, it evidently clear that the ability to capture the "residents" of the model (us) the existence of the model and its involvement in it is in the factors that designers must consider before starting development. If these opportunities are so high that allow you to build an object model with a diameter of almost a hundred billion light-years from the resolution of femtometra trillion shares, they are, who would doubt, have adopted measures of this nature, which would exclude the possibility of a precise and definitive answer to the question of whether Our universe is a computer simulation or not.
Prepared according to the arxiv.