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# How To Simulate The Universe With DFT
- URL: https://www.cascadepbs.org/show/pbs-space-time/episode/how-to-simulate-the-universe-with-dft-79yrx9/
- Published: 2024-04-02T23:12:18.000Z
- Updated: 2025-08-21T13:46:23.000Z
- Description: Let’s learn how to cheat the universe.
- Author: Cascade PBS Staff
- Tags: PBS Space Time, Season 8, Episode 3, #ZZZ_Episode_a5d02d16-5ce9-42ac-a9d4-ecc68d41d927, #episode, #ZZZ_Show_ae70f836-13b6-4c9d-b61f-99f7b8bc29eb, #v1.16

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’s how insanely information dense the quantum wave function 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).