Calculating Space
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Calculating Space is the title of MIT's English translation of Konrad Zuse's book Rechnender Raum (published in Germany in 1969), the first book on digital physics. Zuse proposed that the universe is being computed on some sort of discrete computing machinery, challenging the long-held view that some physical laws are continuous by nature. He focused on cellular automata as a possible substrate of the computation, and pointed out (among other things) that the classical notion of entropy growth does not make sense in deterministically computed universes.
Bell's theorem is sometimes thought to contradict Zuse's hypothesis, but it is not applicable to deterministic universes, as Bell himself has pointed out. Similarly, although Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says something about the fundamental limitations of an observer trying to observe the universe in which they are living, the uncertainty principle does not rule out Zuse´s hypothesis, which views the observer as part of the deterministic process. So far there is no unambiguous physical evidence against the possibility that everything is just a computation, which is one of the reasons why recent years have seen a resurgence of the field.
References
- Rechnender Raum, Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig, 1969. 70 p.
- Calculating Space, MIT Technical Translation AZT-70-164-GEMIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Project MAC), Cambridge, Mass. 02139, February 1970.
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