The idea that the universe is a digital computation device
Digital physics is a speculative idea that the universe can be conceived of as a vast, digital computation device, or as the output of a deterministic or probabilistic computer program .[1] The hypothesis that the universe is a digital computer was proposed by Konrad Zuse in his 1969 book Rechnender Raum [2] ("Calculating-space ").[3] The term digital physics was coined in 1978 by Edward Fredkin ,[4] who later came to prefer the term digital philosophy .[5] Fredkin encouraged the creation of a digital physics group at what was then MIT 's Laboratory for Computer Science , with Tommaso Toffoli and Norman Margolus as primary figures.
Digital physics suggests that there exists, at least in principle, a program for a universal computer that computes the evolution of the universe . The computer could be, for example, a huge cellular automaton .[1] [6]
Extant models of digital physics appear incompatible with the existence of several continuous characters of physical symmetries ,[7] e.g., rotational symmetry , translational symmetry , Lorentz symmetry , and the Lie group gauge invariance of Yang–Mills theories , all central to current physical theory. Moreover, extant models of digital physics violate various well-established features of quantum physics , belonging to the class of theories with local hidden variables that have so far been ruled out experimentally by physicists using Bell's theorem .[8] [9]
However, covariant discrete theories can be formulated that preserve the aforementioned symmetries.[10] [11]
See also
References
^ a b Schmidhuber, Jürgen (1997), Freksa, Christian; Jantzen, Matthias; Valk, Rüdiger (eds.), "A computer scientist's view of life, the universe, and everything" , Foundations of Computer Science: Potential — Theory — Cognition , Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 1337, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 201–208, arXiv :quant-ph/9904050 , doi :10.1007/bfb0052088 , ISBN 978-3-540-69640-7 , S2CID 17830241 , retrieved 2022-05-23
^ "Das Jahr des rechnenden Raums" . blog.hnf.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-05-23 .
^ Zuse, Konrad (1969). Rechnender Raum . Braunschweig: Springer Vieweg . ISBN 978-3-663-02723-2 .
^ 6.895 Digital Physics Lecture Outline , MIT Course Catalog Listing, 1978 (PDF)
^ "Digital Philosophy | A New Way of Thinking About Physics" . digitalphilosophy.org . Archived from the original on 2021-01-26.
^ Zuse, Konrad, 1967, Elektronische Datenverarbeitung vol 8., pages 336–344
^ Fritz, Tobias (June 2013). "Velocity polytopes of periodic graphs and a no-go theorem for digital physics" . Discrete Mathematics . 313 (12): 1289–1301. arXiv :1109.1963 . doi :10.1016/j.disc.2013.02.010 .
^ Aaronson, Scott (2014). "Quantum randomness: if there's no predeterminism in quantum mechanics, can it output numbers that truly have no pattern?" . American Scientist . 102 (4): 266–271. doi :10.1511/2014.109.266 .
^ Jaeger, Gregg (2018). "Clockwork Rebooted: Is the Universe a Computer?". Quantum Foundations, Probability and Information . STEAM-H: Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Mathematics & Health. pp. 71–91. doi :10.1007/978-3-319-74971-6_8 . ISBN 978-3-319-74970-9 .
^ D'Ambrosio, Fabio (Feb 2019). "A Noether Theorem for discrete Covariant Mechanics" (PDF) . arXiv :1902.08997 .
^ Grimmer, Daniel (May 2022). "A Discrete Analog of General Covariance -- Part 2: Despite what you've heard, a perfectly Lorentzian lattice theory" (PDF) . arXiv :2205.07701 .
Further reading