Gus Rosania writes about his experiments in Second Life (1):

Today I began some very simple experiments into the relationship between information, entropy, encryption and chaos in SL. Basically, I took three spheres (.5 m diameters) and made them so that they were kissing each other in 3D space. Then, I made a copy of these three spheres, placed them 5 meters apart from the first three spheres. I converted the 2x 3spheres into physical objects and dropped them from a distance of about 2meters from a floor plank. I repeated this experiment a few times. This is preliminary, but here is what I observed: The two sets of three spheres dropped side-by-side (simultaneously) followed similar (but perhaps not exactly identical?) paths. However, when the spheres were dropped at different times, the paths that the spheres followed upon collision with the floor plank appeared different.

This is a signal that virtual worlds and complex networked system are starting to be evaluated with the expectation of emergent properties not predictable from basic assumptions. Instead of contacting Linden Lab (2) for their algorithms, Rosania is treating the virtual world of Second Life much as early scientists treated the natural world - by doing experiments and forming hypotheses. Even though Linden Lab may be using simple algorithms to control objects, the combined effect of these or activity of residents may interact in ways that are difficult to predict.

Rosania has also explored even more complex experiments in Second Life, such as a simulation of size-exclusion chromatography. (3)