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Can you walk through space and time? Is it possible to manipulate gravity? And can a single substance completely change your behavior and physiology? Well, what if I told you the answer is a resounding yes? Hello Internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that. Wait, why are you all upside down? Wait. Ah, that's better. Gravity seems to be getting a little weird around here, just like in today's video sponsor, Active Matter. Active Matter is a first-person sci-fi tactical shooter with a couple of twists, both literal and figurative. You assume the role of an agent at your base of operations, the shelter. With your armor on, weapons loaded, and medicines prepared, you head out on solo or cooperative raids into the unstable quantum zone
. The main thing you're looking for is Active Matter. It is a substance that makes these areas become strange. You can walk on the walls and the space around you warps. It even changes the shape of the objects around you, creating highly imaginative maps, such as a huge island of rusty Soviet industrial complexes and abandoned research laboratories. And since the active material isn't cheap in full PvP and PvE modes, other agents and the zone itself try to take it from you. But are these outlandish science fiction twists just that, fiction? In recent years we've made some pretty impressive leaps in science, and we've been dreaming about this kind of technology since the 1980s. Is it still just a
pipe dream, or are we getting closer to making it a reality? Are the disruptive physical characteristics of active matter more like real science than science fiction? Spoiler alert: the things you experience in the active matter may be closer to reality than you think. So, loyal theorists, put on your tactical gear because we're going to delve into the Unstable Quantum Zones and find out for ourselves if active matter is real. Now, if you are an active science enthusiast like me, you may feel a little confused thinking that the answer is simple because yes, technically speaking, active matter already exists. Active matter is made up of sets of natural or artificial objects that constantly consume energy and self-organize into surprisingly
complex behaviors. You've probably seen this at some point in nature, for example, in birds. They are individual beings that consume energy and can organize themselves into large flocks that move as one. However, while this is great, it doesn't even remotely resemble how active matter behaves in the game. There, active matter manipulates gravity, allowing buildings and objects to float and enabling you to walk up to them. Active matter can also manipulate spatial topology, twisting and warping the map's terrain before your very eyes. And the last key issue that active matter appears to be responsible for is warping the fabric of space and time, which gives rise to
the existence of these unstable quantum zones in the first place. There are many things that definitely seem like science fiction, but that doesn't mean they are impossible. To begin with, there are some things that can change the shape and behavior of living organisms. The first thing that comes to mind is the xenobots. Basically, xenobots are stem cells derived from frog embryos. But, in essence, they are a type of programmable matter that can be programmed to perform various tasks such as walking, swimming, pushing pellets, transporting payloads, and working in groups to collect waste. They can even gather loose cells from their surroundings, turning these new cells into more of what the
xenobots have been programmed to be or what they have become, much like we see with active matter, which can transform the host in various ways depending on the environment. Some become dendroids or flower men, whose bodies have become one with the nature that surrounds them, while others end up entangled in the space-time continuum itself, becoming invisible. And you'll encounter many of these types on raids. The active ingredient often attracts curious onlookers; It is, therefore, high risk and high reward. The only thing the xenobots lack in terms of active matter is autonomy. The xenobots need information to begin their transformation. However, another favorite of the channel can change a host's behavior on its
own, and that's cordyceps. It is a fungus that normally takes over the mind and body of ants, forcing them to act differently. He starts acting erratically, experiencing things like seizures. Finally, it climbs onto vegetation and dies, allowing the fungus to grow out of the corpse and release spores. What's interesting about these cordyceps is that these behavioral changes are not universal. Depending on the type and location of the ant, the behaviors differ. Researchers discovered that in Thailand, infected ants found very specific places to die, 25 cm from the ground, using the underside of leaves. But in Brazil, the ants
were much less accurate. They simply went up and hoped for the best. Different ants and locations affected how the cordyceps directed them. Because different people are affected by the active ingredient in different ways. All scientists would have to do is take the cordyceps' desire for self-preservation and give it to the xenobots so they can function essentially autonomously. And suddenly, you have matter that can become anything you want, absorbing other cells and life forms as it goes. Therefore, it is not necessarily a reality of the here and now, but it is not very far off either.
However, you can always get Active Matter now on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation using the links in the description if you don't want to wait. Although I will say that some of Active Matter's other abilities are much closer. Let's take, for example, the manipulation of the game's spatial topology, where the map around you twists, deforms, and restructures itself, breaking known laws of physics. This seems impossible to be possible, and yet, somehow it is. It is called metamaterials in the subfield of transformation optics. Metamaterials are artificially structured materials that interact with light waves in unconventional ways, designed to achieve something called negative refraction. This is where the subfield of
transformation optics comes into play. It works by curving the path that light follows to go around the object, essentially creating a camouflage device. It works because we receive information in our brain by observing how light reflects off an object. But if the light bends to move around the object, the light will not hit it or reflect into our eyes for us to receive the information. The light moves around it, so we never receive the information that it is there. But what does that have to do with the curvature of space like the one we see in active matter? Well, thanks to the way scientists have found ways to bend light, the mathematical equivalent of how spacetime itself bends light,
physicists have been able to use metamaterials to simulate black holes, big bangs, and even multiverses in laboratory settings, which are also part of the game's canon, by the way. Or the Tims use substances to jump between timelines and replicate elements from other realities. But let's get back to science. Things within these environments will have the same effect as if we were in an environment of intense gravity where light bends and objects within space begin to deform in ways that are unusual to us. By bending light, you are essentially tricking light waves into moving differently and changing our perception of things.
Suddenly, the roads could be on one side like a wall, just like we see in the game. If bending light is physically possible now, it may not be long before warping physical space becomes possible through metamaterials. All because of how gravity affects the way we perceive light. Which is actually a good continuation of another feature of active matter, the manipulation of gravity. One of the cool tricks is that strange gravity anomalies occur where you can move buildings, objects float, and other strange things happen that defy the gravity we all know so well. And although this may not be something we can achieve yet, the key word is yet.
I'm sure everyone has heard of general relativity, a theory from the great mind of Albert Einstein. However, in 1994, Miguel Alcubierre took that idea further and summarized that, since the idea of gravity is the direct result of mass and energy curving spacetime, to change the gravity of an object or make something float, you would have to change the way spacetime curves around that object, allowing it to have its own rules of gravity. This idea is being investigated primarily in terms of warp travel, being able to move in space and time at any given speed by means of the force of gravity generated, something we also experience in active matter.
War holes that take you from other parts of the map, allowing you to change position, escape a fight, or find a way to a part of the map that might have seemed impossible to reach. But this concept could also be applied to objects, allowing their gravity to change. But Alcubierre's idea was more than just a theory, it was a physical theory. I'm sorry. The mathematics behind this idea actually proves to be true, demonstrating that this concept could become a reality. But there's a catch. For war holes to work or to change the gravity of an object, matter with negative energy is required, something that scientists do not know how to produce on a large enough scale. Well, I guess that's all. The active ingredient was the final obstacle. Without
negative energy, it is not possible. Except that's not entirely true. Yes, scientists haven't yet been able to create negative energy on a scale large enough to do the things we've talked about, but that doesn't mean they haven't found a way to do it. And the way they do it is related to where you, as a player, end up in the game, the unstable quantum zones. Unstable quantum zones are the places you move around to collect active matter. The name implies that the effects of active matter originate at the quantum level, a microscopic level so small that it almost does not exist. Despite this, he apparently created these strange anomalies on a much larger scale, which is something scientists know could happen thanks to the concept of quantum vacuum engineering
through something called the effect. The Casimir effect demonstrates that even in a vacuum, where there is nothing, there is still quantum activity. This activity can be manipulated simply by placing two uncharged metal plates very close together in a vacuum. Since the space between them is much smaller than outside space, there is less quantum energy in the gap. The area between the plates is now unstable. This creates a small but real force that pulls the plates together. The reason this is so important to scientists and to us today is because all of this takes place in a vacuum, where there is absolutely nothing, zero energy. Therefore, if the
energy moving between the plates is less than the external energy, zero, which is what forces the plates to come together, you suddenly have negative energy. Exactly what we need to make things like altering gravity, warping light waves, and warping through space and time happen. Now, for the record, this creation of negative energy is small, super small. But it is the first step towards creating negative energy in the midst of these unstable quantum zones. That is exactly what we are experiencing in active matter, but on a much, much larger scale. We are exploring unstable quantum zones where a large amount of negative energy is produced to the point where buildings warp, you get warped on the map, and even
gravity itself changes. And as we all know, science rarely stops. People said it was impossible to have a single utensil that could cut things, pick things up, and pick them up. But look at this. You can do all that. Joking aside, we are seeing scientists using metamaterials to bend light like gravity does. They are separately building active metamaterial structures that reconfigure themselves in real time in response to heat, electricity, or magnetism. Exactly the same idea pursued by programmable matter. And metamaterials are also the tools that physicists are currently using to study the Casimir effect on a larger scale. What is needed to increase the production of negative energy. The same family of materials, three
completely different problems that converge at one point. It won't be long before scientists manage to integrate all of this so that it acts more like the active matter in the game. And within the game, the zones themselves contain clues about the true origin of the active matter if you survive long enough to find them. So if you want to literally experience the future right now, head to the description or pinned comment and click the link, or scan the QR code on screen to download the game today. Whether alone or in a squad, in PvP or pure PvE, gear up at the shelter, attack the zones, and try to leave with your loot and timeline intact. It's available on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation, so wherever you play, you'll be able to
get a sense of this horrifying but scientifically accurate future that awaits us. Thanks again to Active Theory for sponsoring this video and, as always, friends, remember that this is just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching the video.
