{"id":236378,"date":"2026-05-02T19:07:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/how-to-simulate-the-universe-with-dft"},"modified":"2026-05-02T19:07:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:07:51","slug":"how-to-simulate-the-universe-with-dft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/how-to-simulate-the-universe-with-dft","title":{"rendered":"How To Simulate The Universe With DFT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/55c9wkNmfn0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: <a href=\"http:\/\/to.pbs.org\/DonateSPACE\">http:\/\/to.pbs.org\/DonateSPACE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Take the Space Time Fan Survey Here: <a href=\"https:\/\/forms.gle\/wS4bj9o3rvyhfKzUA\">https:\/\/forms.gle\/wS4bj9o3rvyhfKzUA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!<br \/> \/ pbsspacetime.<\/p>\n<p>If you used every particle in the observable universe to do a full quantum simulation, how big would that simulation be? At best a large molecule. That\u2019s how insanely information dense the quantum wavefunction really is. And yet we routinely simulate systems with thousands, even millions of particles. How? By cheating. Using the ultimate compression algorithm: Density Functional Theory (DFT). Let\u2019s learn how to cheat the universe.<\/p>\n<p>Check out the Space Time Merch Store.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbsspacetime.com\/shop\">https:\/\/www.pbsspacetime.com\/shop<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements!<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/how-to-simulate-the-universe-with-dft\">Continue reading \u201cHow To Simulate The Universe With DFT\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http:\/\/to.pbs.org\/DonateSPACE Take the Space Time Fan Survey Here: https:\/\/forms.gle\/wS4bj9o3rvyhfKzUA Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! \/ pbsspacetime. If you used every particle in the observable universe to do a full quantum simulation, how big [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,41,42,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-information-science","category-media-arts","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}