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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."

11 of 610 comments (clear)

  1. The ultimate compressed file then is... by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...42!

    --
    Infuriate left and right
  2. Okay, so what OS? by LinuxDeckard · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
    1. Re:Okay, so what OS? by moody834 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Depends on whether or not you consider the daytime sky a blue screen or not.

      --
      /* * We did not get what we need .. we cannot sleep ..
  3. 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 2nd+Post! · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As far as I can recall, one of the basic premises of entropy and information theory is that *everything* can be expressed in bits.

      If everything can be expressed in bits, then everything is computable.

      A stupid question is whether the universe is a determinstic Turing machine or not, or whether it is by very nature indeterministic :P

      It's not that something has to be made into a computer so much as redefining one's perspective of what a computer is to accomodate the realities of the universe; that DNA is a storage mechanism, with RNA and DNA replication and protein synthesis being complex computation processes. Or that the universe is really expressible as a bunch of states (read his article, and you'll see that), and as such the traversal from state to state is no more complex than following a state diagram in a really big state machine...

      Which is just a computer, doncha know?

      --

      GPL Deconstructed
  4. Moore or less... by jolshefsky · · Score: 5, Interesting
    According to Moore's law, the typical desktop computer should be able to simulate the universe in less than 600 years.

    (18 months per double; 10^120 =~= 2^399; 1.5 years * 399 = 598.5 years)

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    Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)

    1. Re:Moore or less... by gosand · · Score: 5, Funny
      According to Moore's law, the typical desktop computer should be able to simulate the universe in less than 600 years. (18 months per double; 10^120 =~= 2^399; 1.5 years * 399 = 598.5 years)

      Hmm, wonder what it will be able to calculate in 601 years...

      Actually, in 600 years, there will 600 more years worth of calculations to do. Including the simulation in question. Ouch, that hurt.

      --

      My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  5. With a Machine like that... by E1ven · · Score: 5, Funny

    With calculating power like that, you /might/ be able to run Doom III at the highest settigs ;)

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    Colin Davis
  6. Does this mean ... by iaamoac · · Score: 5, Funny
    1. ...the expansion of the universe is similar to never de-allocating memory?

    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

  7. It is, of course, even more complicated than that. by RyanFenton · · Score: 5, Interesting


    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

  8. Re:Human Free Will by tuck182 · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's a good thing that the Universe wasn't written in C++. Otherwise, our friends would be able to access our private members.