Related papers: Finiteness of the universe and computation beyond …
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.…
I show that physical devices that perform observation, prediction, or recollection share an underlying mathematical structure. I call devices with that structure "inference devices". I present a set of existence and impossibility results…
Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…
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…
Motivated by the problem of finding finite versions of classical incompleteness theorems, we present some conjectures that go beyond ${\bf NP\neq co NP}$. These conjectures formally connect computational complexity with the difficulty of…
We consider the issue of computability at the most fundamental level of physical reality: the Planck scale. To this aim, we consider the theoretical model of a quantum computer on a non commutative space background, which is a computational…
By the sometimes so-called 'Main Theorem' of Recursive Analysis, every computable real function is necessarily continuous. We wonder whether and which kinds of HYPERcomputation allow for the effective evaluation of also discontinuous…
Many believe that the deep question of "why is there something rather than nothing?" is unanswerable. The universe just is and no further explanation for its existence is possible. In this paper I explain why this question must have an…
This article addresses the question of when physical laws and their consequences can be computed. If a physical system is capable of universal computation, then its energy gap can't be computed. At an even more fundamental level, the most…
Manin, Feynman, and Deutsch have viewed quantum computing as a kind of universal physical simulation procedure. Much of the writing about quantum logic circuits and quantum Turing machines has shown how these machines can simulate an…
The quantum-Extended Church-Turing thesis is a principle of physics as well as computer science. It asserts that the laws of physics will prevent the construction of a machine that can efficiently determine the results of any calculation…
This text presents the research field of natural/unconventional computing as it appears in the book COMPUTING NATURE. The articles discussed consist a selection of works from the Symposium on Natural Computing at AISB-IACAP (British Society…
The quantum-Extended Church-Turing thesis has been explored in many physical theories including general relativity but lacks exploration in quantum field theories such as quantum electrodynamics. Through construction of a computational…
Quantum physics is surprising in many ways. One surprise is the threat to locality implied by Bell's Theorem. Another surprise is the capacity of quantum computation, which poses a threat to the complexity-theoretic Church-Turing thesis. In…
The mathematical study of infinity seems to have the ability to transport the mind to lofty and unusual realms. Decades ago, I was transported in this way by Rudy Rucker's book Infinity and the Mind. Despite much subsequent learning and…
The conceptual relation between the measurability of quantum mechanical observables and the computability of numerical functions is re-examined. A new formulation is given for the notion of measurability with finite precision in order to…
A physical system is determined by a finite set of initial conditions and "laws" represented by equations. The system is computable if we can solve the equations in all instances using a "finite body of mathematical knowledge". In this…
Can a computer which runs for time $\omega^2$ compute more than one which runs for time $\omega$? No. Not, at least, for the infinite computer we describe. Our computer gets more powerful when the set of its steps gets larger. We prove that…
The essay consists of three parts. In the first part, it is explained how theory of algorithms and computations evaluates the contemporary situation with computers and global networks. In the second part, it is demonstrated what new…
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…