33rd Square | Seth Lloyd On Programming The Universe

?Quantum Computing

Seth Llyod is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His book, "Programming the Universe", is about the computational power of atoms, electrons, and elementary particles.

S eth Llyod is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). ?His book,?Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos?postulated that the universe itself may actually be an enormous quantum computer.

Lloyd thinks that quantum computers will not only have practical applications but also help solve mysteries of the utterly strange and super-small quantum realm.

According to?Lloyd, "Quantum mechanics is weird, that's just the way it is. It's a sad thing, but it's true. In fact, there's a funny phenomenon where people who get their Nobel Prizes in quantum mechanics don't believe in quantum mechanics because it's so weird?starting with Einstein.

"Einstein got his Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect, all about quantum mechanics and photons, yet he never really believed in quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is just completely strange and counterintuitive. We can't believe that things can be here [in one place] and there [in another place] at the same time. And yet that's a fundamental piece of quantum mechanics."

In?Programming the Universe, Lloyd contends that the universe itself is one big quantum computer producing what we see around us, and ourselves, as it runs a cosmic program. According to Lloyd, once we understand the laws of physics completely, we will be able to use small-scale quantum computing to understand the universe completely as well.

Lloyd states that we could have the whole universe simulated in a computer in 600 years provided that computational power increases according to Moore's Law. However, Lloyd shows that there are limits to rapid exponential growth in a finite universe, and that it is very unlikely that Moore's Law will be maintained indefinitely.Lloyd's talk, "Programming the Universe" below, is about the computational power of atoms, electrons, and elementary particles.

SOURCE ?TVO

Source: http://www.33rdsquare.com/2012/07/seth-lloyd-on-programming-universe.html

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