Programming the Universe
| Author | Seth Lloyd |
|---|---|
| Subject | Quantum mechanics, Quantum computers |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | 2006 |
| ISBN | 978-1400040926 |
| OCLC | 423500375 |
Programming the Universe is a popular science book by Seth Lloyd, professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published in 2006. In it, he advanced the view that the universe is actually a giant quantum computer.
As reviewer Corey S. Powell put it in the New York Times. Lloyd:
In the space of 221 dense, frequently thrilling and occasionally exasperating pages, … tackles computer logic, thermodynamics, chaos theory, complexity, quantum mechanics, cosmology, consciousness, sex and the origin of life — throwing in, for good measure, a heartbreaking afterword that repaints the significance of all that has come before. The source of all this intellectual mayhem is the kind of Big Idea so prevalent in popular science books these days. Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at M.I.T., takes as his topic the fundamental workings of the universe…, which he thinks has been horribly misunderstood. Scientists have looked at it as a ragtag collection of particles and fields while failing to see what it is as a majestic whole: an enormous computer.[1]
Lloyd, wrote Powell, is "one of the world's experts in a new kind of computing device, called a quantum computer, which . . . mimic the natural world perfectly,"
In an interview with Wired magazine, Lloyd postulated that
everything in the universe is made of bits. Not chunks of stuff, but chunks of information — ones and zeros. … Atoms and electrons are bits. Atomic collisions are "ops." Machine language is the laws of physics. The universe is a quantum computer.[2]
Gilbert Taylor, writing in Booklist of the American Library Association, said that the book:
offers brilliantly clarifying explanations of the "bit," the smallest unit of information; how bits change their state; and how changes-of-state can be registered on atoms via quantum-mechanical qualities such as "spin" and "superposition." Putting readers in the know about quantum computation, Lloyd then informs them that it may well be the answer to physicists' search for aunified theory of everything. Exploring big questions in accessible, comprehensive fashion, Lloyd's work is of vital importance to the general-science audience.[3]
References
- ^ Powell, Corey S. (April 2, 2006). "Welcome to the Machine". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Life, the Universe, and Everything". Issue 14.03. Wired. March 2006. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Quoted on the Amazon website.