Related papers: The Computing Spacetime
This article reviews the history of digital computation, and investigates just how far the concept of computation can be taken. In particular, I address the question of whether the universe itself is in fact a giant computer, and if so,…
Quantum gravity (or quantum spacetime) is to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single theoretical framework and presented as the most important open puzzle in fundamental physics. The development of a microscopic theory…
Quantum gravity has become a fertile interface between gravitational physics and quantum many-body physics, with its double goal of identifying the microscopic constituents of the universe and their fundamental dynamics, and of…
Quantum computers are a promising candidate to radically expand computational science through increased computing power and more effective algorithms. In particular quantum computing could have a tremendous impact in the field of quantum…
Some contemporary views of the universe assume information and computation to be key in understanding and explaining the basic structure underpinning physical reality. We introduce the Computable Universe exploring some of the basic…
Quantum Computing is a new and exciting field at the intersection of mathematics, computer science and physics. It concerns a utilization of quantum mechanics to improve the efficiency of computation. Here we present a gentle introduction…
It is first pointed out that there is a common mathematical model for the universe and the quantum computer. The former is called the histories approach to quantum mechanics and the latter is called measurement based quantum computation.…
This paper proposes a method of unifying quantum mechanics and gravity based on quantum computation. In this theory, fundamental processes are described in terms of pairwise interactions between quantum degrees of freedom. The geometry of…
Time in quantum gravity is not a well-defined notion, despite its central role in the very definition of dynamics. Using the formalism of quantum geometrodynamics, we shortly review the problem and illustrate it with two proposed solutions.…
Quantum computers are expected to revolutionize our ability to process information. The advancement from classical to quantum computing is a product of our advancement from classical to quantum physics -- the more our understanding of the…
Quantum computers are becoming real, and they have the inherent potential to significantly impact many application domains. We sketch the basics about programming quantum computers, showing that quantum programs are typically hybrid…
Since its inception at the beginning of the twentieth century, quantum mechanics has challenged our conceptions of how the universe ought to work; however, the equations of quantum mechanics can be too computationally difficult to solve…
Starting from a new understanding of the vacuum energy problem based on the combination of the phase space regularization and the holographic bound, we argue that quantum gravity should be understood as gravitized quantum theory, that is,…
Our conventional understanding of space-time, as well as our notion of geometry, break down once we attempt to describe the very early stages of the evolution of our universe. The extreme physical conditions near the Big Bang necessitate an…
This is a contribution to a book on quantum gravity and philosophy. I discuss nature and origin of the problem of quantum gravity. I examine the knowledge that may guide us in addressing this problem, and the reliability of such knowledge.…
The physical world is quantum. However, our description of the quantum physics still relies much on concepts in classical physics and in some cases with `quantized' interpretations. The most important case example is that of spacetime. We…
This paper reviews connections between physics and computation, and explores their implications. The main topics are computational "hardness" of physical systems, computational status of fundamental theories, quantum computation, and the…
`How do our ideas about quantum mechanics affect our understanding of spacetime?' This familiar question leads to quantum gravity. The complementary question is also important: `How do our ideas about spacetime affect our understanding of…
Is there a number for every bit of spacetime, or is spacetime smooth like the real line? The ultimate fate of a quantum theory of gravity might depend on it. The troublesome infinities of quantum gravity can be cured by assuming that…
The physics of quantum gravity is discussed within the framework of topological quantum field theory. Some of the principles are illustrated with examples taken from theories in which space-time is three dimensional.