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Is the Universe its own Largest Computer?
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."
...42!
Infuriate left and right
I guess the fact we don't have weekly big-bangs indicates the universe doesn't run a certain OS out of Redmond :)
UNIX *is* user-friendly. Its just more selective on who its friends are. --Scott Adams
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?
...if the universe has performed 10^120 operations and it's about 20 billion years old, it's running at about 4*10^90 gigahertz. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!
The article implies there hasn't been enough time for each bit/particle in the universe to have been "flipped" more than once, which further implies that the universe is NOT a computer. However, the number of particles mentioned is that in out 3D/4D (space / spacetime) universe. With superstring theory postulating extra dimensions up to 10 or 11 all "curled up" out of our sight, maybe this is where extra particles/bits are located to support the universe as a computer?
(18 months per double; 10^120 =~= 2^399; 1.5 years * 399 = 598.5 years)
--- Jason Olshefsky
Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)
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.
With calculating power like that, you /might/ be able to run Doom III at the highest settigs ;)
Colin Davis
2. ...the rapid expansion phase at the beginning was someone trying to overclock the universe?
3. ...the big crunch comes when MS figures out how to write software for the univsersal computer?
4. ... the CPU manufacturers are right around the corner to making a computer more powerful than universe.
5. ...all the weird stuff at the quantum scale is caused by dereferencing a NULL pointer.
Iaamoac
For instance, gravity seems to have a universal effect. It diminishes over distance, but ultimately never stops having an effect. Thus, for every movement, you'd first need to look at all elements of the "gravity map" to determine your precise gravity vector, then you'd need to update the "gravity map" with your movement. This would seem to have at least an N^2 effect. The universe doesn't seem at least to kludge on things like this.
Many forces act like this, which would tend to make the exponent on the number of bit manipulations required blossom much faster than predicted. Take a look at raytracer graphic design to see how messy reality can be when you introduce more than a couple elements into a scene, much less of course a universe. If one is going for a true simulation of reality, at least force by force, particle by particle, I believe it's going to be more complex than this estimation.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Cricket is a simplified version of baseball in which there are only two bases, but to confuse you the pitchers periodically change direction. Also, the bats are bigger because cricket players are fuelled by beer, and their coordination isn't so hot.
Relevance? well, this thread is about big numbers. And I think it was the Hungarian humorist George Mikes who said that the English, lacking a religion, invented cricket to give themselves an idea of eternity.
No, I confess, completely off topic.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
How many of us read this headline and thought, "YEAH! FORTY-TWO BABY!!! +5 Funny Karma, here I come! WOO!!!"
>click
D'oh.
It's a good thing that the Universe wasn't written in C++. Otherwise, our friends would be able to access our private members.
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.
One has to wonder who decided to mod that up. If the modee doesnt understand the post or even have a fucking clue about the stuff why mod it then... (you wont see me moderating business, economics or litigational stuff either)
Because that post is total crap. It's Planck and it's 10^-43 and Mandlebrot set is the converging set for a recursive complex equation (namely z z^2+c). Not that x=1/xi couldnt produce some fractal, but I'm not going to bother myself checking which that is because even this post is redundant, I'm posting this merely for the metamoderators.
Not to mention "guided by", "with chaotic consequences"...
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
I got the century wrong but yes, this was an idea. Here's a history site.
They were so overwhelmed by the idea that you could pump AIR instead of just water (and that it would invisibly kill things in bell jars), that they started wondering what else you could pump--e.g. thoughts. Here's Descartes playing with the idea:
"The cavities of the brain are central reservoirs...animal spirits enter these cavities. They pass into the pores of its substance and from these pores into the nerves. The nerves may be compared to the tubes of a waterworks; breathing or other actions depend on the flow of animal spirits into the nerves. The rational soul (the pineal) takes place of the engineer, living in that part of the reservoir that connects all of the various tubes...."
- We didn't so much invent Mathematics as we discovered it.
That's your belief.Yes, and your view is a belief also. In fact, all positions are beliefs, so what? You label it a belief as if it's a withering criticism, when in fact, it's just a definition.
I don't want to get into a deep epistemological discussion on Slashdot, of all places. I will point out that you can't prove your position any more than I can prove mine. You, however, would deny that a proof is anything but an empty manipulation of symbols, devoid of any meaning.
We men "invent" math and logic. Right. Forget the observation that children are prewired for language and logic. Math and logic are at the base of our being. This is clear to me.
Yes, I'm a platonist. I see a theory in map theory is reminiscient of one in number theory. Is it because I invented it that way, or is there a mathematic truth that binds them together that I discovered through their similarity?
In the end, these are just appeals. I can't reason with someone who believes that reasoning is arbitrary.