What this is. The deepest layer of reality we know is not made of objects. It is made of
fields. A particle is not a tiny ball; it is a ripple in a field. This universe uses
two quantum fields, each a complex wavefunction ψ that fills all of space. Where the wave
piles up, |ψ|², is where the matter is: that is what the bright regions show. The colour is
the wave's phase, the thing that makes quantum waves interfere. Nothing is placed by hand.
Brightness = |ψ|² where the quantum wave concentrates. This is the matter, the closest thing here to a particle.
Colour = phase the angle of the complex wave. Bands of colour are interference; a colour pinwheel is a quantized vortex.
Two fields (ψA, ψB) two quantum species sharing the space, pushing on each other through their coupling.
How it works
Each field obeys the Gross–Pitaevskii / nonlinear Schrödinger equation,
the real equation of quantum matter waves. This is what a Bose–Einstein condensate or a superfluid
actually does. It has these parts:
Kinetic (ℏ, m): the wave spreads and interferes, exactly as in Schrödinger's equation.
Lighter mass spreads faster.
Self-interaction (g): the wave feels its own density. Attractive (negative) makes it clump
into bright packets; repulsive (positive) spreads it out.
Coupling (gₐᵦ): the two fields feel each other's density.
Because ψ is complex it carries a phase, so you get genuine quantum behaviour: interference,
tunnelling, and quantized vortices, and the total amount of matter is conserved. Honest limit: this
is real quantum wave mechanics, not full quantum field theory (that is not computable at this
scale). It is as real as quanta get in a live, watchable simulation.
The laws are numbers you can change (θ)
The constants, ℏ, the mass, the interaction strengths, are a list of numbers called
theta (θ). In our universe they are fixed. Here you can move them. Press
Randomize physics to draw a different universe's constants. Most produce nothing that lasts.
Changing θ asks the real question: which physical constants allow stable, life-like structure to
exist at all?
Why there is a "Drive" (the honest caveat)
A closed quantum system conserves everything and, with loss, relaxes to a still vacuum, so nothing
complex survives. Real complexity needs energy flowing through an open system. The Drive feeds
the fields (like the pump in a real driven quantum condensate) and Damping drains them. It is
the one ingredient not derived from the equation itself. Both start at zero, so nothing here is being fed or drained — energy is conserved and the wave sloshes and interferes indefinitely. Raise Damping to make the field settle, or Drive to pump energy in.
What "Search laws" does
Search tries many different θ automatically and scores each universe. The score leans hard on
the M2 detector: a universe where a matter packet actually reproduces with inheritance scores far
above one that is merely busy, so the search is pulled toward the laws that permit life. It keeps the
best, mutates, and tries again. It does not evolve creatures; it evolves the laws. Such a
universe may never turn up, and that is the honest state of the field, but it is genuinely trying.
Any hit is marked ✦ under Discoveries.
What would count as real life
A packet that lasts, or repairs, is not enough; a vortex does that. The honest target, not yet
reached by anyone from laws this generic, is a single matter packet that draws energy from the drive,
survives damage, and produces a separate packet carrying its own structure, with no rule that
says "copy." If that copy resembled its parent more than a random packet would, that would be
inheritance appearing on its own. That is the finish line.
How the inheritance detector works (M2)
Watching a packet split in two is not proof of reproduction; a spreading wave does that. The
detector gives every bright packet a lasting identity and follows it. When one splits into two that
drift apart and both survive, it measures each child's fingerprint (size, shape, density
texture, field makeup, measured so it does not depend on position or orientation) and compares it to
the parent's. It also measures how alike any two unrelated packets are, as a baseline. Only
when the children resemble the parent by more than two standard deviations above that baseline does
it count as inheritance. Confirmed events are ringed on the field (amber parent, teal children).
No rule tells the fields to copy.
Try this
- Open Density and watch the wave; bright regions are matter, colour is its phase.
- Switch View to Phase to see interference bands and vortices directly.
- Drag on the field to inject a moving wave packet.
- Raise Damping to watch the field settle toward a still vacuum, or add Drive to pump it back to life.
- Press Search and leave it; interesting universes appear under Discoveries.