When Silas Beane and his team of researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany heard about Oxford Professor Nick Bostrom's 2003 theory that we may be living in a computer-simulated world similar to the hit sci-fi movie 'The Matrix,' they decided to test that theory and see if they could find the theoretical "red pill" that would wake us up.

It may sound like a crackpot conspiracy theory, but the science behind the experiments is sound. Beane and his team are looking for the limitations of physical processes that should occur in a computer-simulated world and have built a small-scale replica of the Universe in order to look for the proverbial red pill.

They are also including a simulation of QCD, or Quantum Chromodynamics, which is the fundamental force in nature that brings about the strong nuclear forces in protons and neutrons, as well as their nuclei and the nuclei's interactions. By using a simulation of  QCD, they hope to isolate the signature of the red pill. The researchers have also mimicked the space-time continuum by computing window-like lattices, which are bringing about new and fascinating insights about matter itself.

However, the researchers warn that the study will only work if the "lattice cut-off" they used in place of the space-time continuum show consistency with what is seen in Nature. Despite this fact, the study is useful because it could be used in the future to create simulations of molecules and cells could be generated and studied with far more ease than they are now.

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