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Is the Universe its own Largest Computer?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the where-are-the-mice dept.

missingmatterboy writes: "If the universe is simply a giant calculating machine, how big is it? Seth Lloyd, who two years ago worked out the theoretical maximum possible power a laptop computer could posess, has now "estimated how much information the Universe can contain, and how many calculations it has performed since the Big Bang." His conclusion: you'd need about 10^90 bits, with something like 10^120 manipulations of those bits, to express the universe since time began."

5 of 610 comments (clear)

  1. Change = Calculation? by flewp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If one plans on estimating the calculations (apparently changes) the universe has performed, how can you even make a guess when we still don't even know precisely how old the universe is, and how much matter there is?

    And also, why does everything have to be made into a computer of some sort? DNA, and now the whole universe?

    --
    WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
    1. Re:Change = Calculation? by texchanchan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Re,
      "...why does everything have to be made into a computer of some sort?"

      Because computers are the hot new technology. In the 1700s, say 250 years ago, things were described in terms of air pumps. Even thought was described using a model of a lot of little air pumps in your brain. That was because they were new, hot technology.

    2. Re:Change = Calculation? by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 4, Insightful
      In other words, you can prove mathematically whether any specific program will end or not.

      Uh, no. You can't.

      There are individual cases for which you can make an ad-hoc proof, yes, but there is no general algorithm that, given a computer program (more properly, a Turing machine), tells you if it halts. I'll leave the gory details to Wikipedia .

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
  2. Universe = Computer? by aralin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And also, why does everything have to be made into a computer of some sort?

    Maybe because its so much easier to think about God as a fellow programmer?

    --
    If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
  3. Re:This is ridiculous by jaoswald · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Between lesson 2 and lesson 3 you've botched things. Just because the particle has a wavefunction over an infinite domain does not mean it contains an infinite amount of information.

    If the particle has finite energy, then that places a limit on the curvature of the wavefunction, and therefore on the "information density" of that wavefunction.

    Furthermore, the finite age of the universe sets a limit on the distinguishability of particle states from one another. Very fine separation of energy states require a long evolution period to be distinguishable. (delta-E delta-t ~ h-bar) That sets a limit on the number of currently distinguishable eigenstates of the universe.