Seth Lloyd is a professor of Quantum Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and is famously quoted as saying that we’re all stuck in this giant quantum computer called the universe. He does not intend that statement to be a metaphor or an abstraction, but rather quite literally, that we are indeed and in fact assemblages of qubits being programmed and bit-flipped by a giant machine that simply processes information. The idea that the universe is a quantum computer is certainly interesting, and one with many implications, such as the the possibility of reprogramming reality.
Lloyd does not speculate on the universe’s programming language, but one hopes that whatever it is, that it’s some improved variant on QCL, the Quantum Computer Language. And to reassure those of us who are concerned about hackers and the stability of the operating system, and such, he proclaims the universe to be very resilient, able to withstand supernovas and the like … he deadpans in mock relief that “the universe does not run Windows”.
Hacking the Universe – Technology Review, July 11, 2006
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January 8th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
This universe IS a quantum computer:
http://www.amperefitz.com/qtmcomp.htm
Fitz