Related papers: Computational universes
Quantum Mechanics, almost 80 years after its arrival, is a well established and experimentally not falsified theory. It has predicted and explained a whole series of natural phenomena of a very delicate nature. But its interpretation has…
In the last couple of decades, the world has seen several stunning instances of quantum algorithms that provably outperform the best classical algorithms. For most problems, however, it is currently unknown whether quantum algorithms can…
The ubiquitous presence of computer simulations in all kinds of research areas evidence their role as the new driving force for the advancement of science and engineering research. Nothing seems to escape the image of success that computer…
With the relentless rise of computer power, there is a widespread expectation that computers can solve the most pressing problems of science, and even more besides. We explore the limits of computational modelling and conclude that, in the…
Is the universe digital or analog? In this essay I argue that both classical and quantum physics include limits that prevent us from definitively answering that question. That quantum physics does so is no surprise. That classical physics…
Philosophy of science attempts to describe all parts of the scientific process in a general way in order to facilitate the description, execution and improvements of this process. So far, all proposed philosophies have only covered existing…
We argue that whether the universe is infinite or finite is less crucial than usually supposed. Paradoxes of repeating behaviour in the infinite, or eternal inflationary, universe can be alleviated by a realistic definition of differing…
The mathematical universe discussed here gives models of possible structures our physical universe can have.
Roughly, the Church-Turing thesis is a hypothesis that describes exactly what can be computed by any real or feasible conceptual computing device. Generally speaking, the computational metaphor is the idea that everything, including the…
The world of mathematics is often considered abstract, with its symbols, concepts, and topics appearing unrelated to physical objects. However, it is important to recognize that the development of mathematics is fundamentally influenced by…
The Simulation Argument has gained significant traction in the public arena. It has offered a hypothesis based on probabilistic analysis of its assumptions that we are likely to exist within a computer simulation. This has been derived from…
An intense effort is being made today to build a quantum computer. Instead of presenting what has been achieved, I invoke here analogies from the history of science in an attempt to glimpse what the future might hold. Quantum computing is…
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
The actual existence of collections of universes -- multiverses -- is strongly suggested by leading approaches to quantum cosmology, and has been proposed earlier as an attractive way to explain the apparent fine-tuned character of our…
Quantum computers, if fully realized, promise to be a revolutionary technology. As a result, quantum computing has become one of the hottest areas of research in the last few years. Much effort is being applied at all levels of the system…
We discuss views about whether the universe can be rationally comprehended, starting with Plato, then Leibniz, and then the views of some distinguished scientists of the previous century. Based on this, we defend the thesis that…
The familiar theories of physics have the feature that the application of the theory to make predictions in specific circumstances can be done by means of an algorithm. We propose a more precise formulation of this feature --- one based on…
Quantum computers take advantage of interfering quantum alternatives in order to handle problems that might be too time consuming with algorithms based on classical logic. Developing quantum computers requires new ways of thinking beyond…
Is the universe computable? If yes, is it computationally a polynomial place? In standard quantum mechanics, which permits infinite parallelism and the infinitely precise specification of states, a negative answer to both questions is not…
Conventional thinking says the universe is infinite. But it could be finite and relatively small, merely giving the illusion of a greater one, like a hall of mirrors. Recent astronomical measurements add support to a finite space with a…