But for single errors that occur more or less randomly on or nearer the ground, proving the involvement of cosmic rays is not easy. The slipperiness of the subatomic particles zooming all around us is not news to Paolo Rech at Trento University in Italy. "It's impossible to be conclusive. That is the fun part," he says, referring to incidents such as the Super Mario upwarp. And yet the possibility that such particles can cause tiny yet impactful data errors in computer systems is not in dispute, as Rech explains.
