Quotes by Seth Lloyd - Page 1

At some point, Moore's law will break down.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Break
Breaking Down
Law
Moore
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Something else has happened with computers.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Computers
Something Else
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Thinking of the universe as a computer is controversial.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Computer
Controversial
Thinking
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Meaning is like pornography, you know it when you see it.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Knows
Pornography
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Bits of ignorance are like viruses that are copied and spread by interaction.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Ignorance
Spread
Viruses
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Yes, I am a quantum mechanic! Those darn quantum computers break all the time.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Break
Computer
Mechanic
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Another feature that everybody notices about the universe is that it's complex.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Complexes
Features
Universe
Complex
Feature
Notices
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Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Death
Certain
Law
Taxes
Thermodynamics
Life Death Nothing
Except
Second
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Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes, and the second law of thermodynamics.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Law
Life Is
Metabolism
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Computers are famous for being able to do complicated things starting from simple programs.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Computers
Famous
Able
Complicated
Complicated Things
Simple
Starting
Starting Over
Being
Programs
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When it comes to their capacity to screw things up, computers are becoming more human every day.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Becoming
Capacity
Computer
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Science consists exactly of those forms of knowledge that can be verified and duplicated by anybody.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Forms
Consists
Duplicated
Exactly
Verified
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Similarly, another famous little quantum fluctuation that programs you is the exact configuration of your DNA.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Famous
Configuration
Dna
Fluctuation
Quantum
Exact
Programs
Similarly
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The history of the universe is, in effect, a huge and ongoing quantum computation. The universe is a quantum computer.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Computer
Ongoing
Quantum
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Some folks think life and technology and mind can keep expanding forever. Others say it can't. We are still not clear on that.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Technology
Forever
Thinking
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Quantum mechanics is weird. I don't understand it. Just live with it. You don't have to understand the nature of things in order to build cool devices.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Mechanic
Order
Quantum
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There are considerable advantages to using many degrees of freedom to store information, stability and controllability being perhaps the most important.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Degrees
Important
Information
Stability
Advantages
Considerable
Perhaps
Store
The Most Important
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If you wanted to build the most powerful computer you could, you can't do better than including everything in the universe that's potentially available.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Available
Computer
Including
Most Powerful
Powerful
Wanted
Potentially
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Indeed, as the above calculation indicates, to take full advantage of the memory space available, the ultimate laptop must turn all its matter into energy.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Space
Advantage
Available
Energy
Memories
Ultimate
Above
Calculation
Full Advantage
Indeed
Laptop
Memory
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I have not proved that the universe is, in fact, a digital computer and that it's capable of performing universal computation, but it's plausible that it is.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Capable
Computation
Computer
Digital
Facts
Performing
Plausible
Universe
Fact
In Fact
Proved
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The amount of information that can be stored by the ultimate laptop, 10 to the 31st bits, is much higher than the 10 to the 10th bits stored on current laptops.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Amount
Bits
Currents
Higher
Information
Laptops
Ultimate
Current
Laptop
Stored
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In this metaphor we actually have a picture of the computational universe, a metaphor which I hope to make scientifically precise as part of a research program.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Metaphor
Precise
Program
Research
Picture
Computational
Scientifically
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It's also a reasonable scientific program to look at the dynamics of the standard model and to try to prove from that dynamics that it is computationally capable.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Capable
Dynamics
Looks
Program
Prove
Reasonable
Trying
Model
Standard
Scientific
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Merely by existing and evolving in time - by existing - any physical system registers information, and by evolving in time it transforms or processes that information.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Evolving
Existing
Merely
Processes
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In order to figure out how to make atoms compute, you have to learn how to speak their language and to understand how they process information under normal circumstances.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Atoms
Circumstances
Information
Normal
Order
Process
Speak
Compute
Figure
Process Information
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We have a picture for how complexity arises, because if the universe is computationally capable, maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that things are so entirely out of control.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Capable
Complexity
Universe
Picture
Arises
Entirely
Surprised
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One of the things that I've been doing recently in my scientific research is to ask this question: Is the universe actually capable of performing things like digital computations?
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Capable
Computation
Digital
Performing
Research
Scientific Research
Universe
Question
Recently
Scientific
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All physical systems can be thought of as registering and processing information, and how one wishes to define computation will determine your view of what computation consists of.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Computation
Determine
Information
Processing
Views
Wish
Consists
Define
Registering
Systems
Wishes
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If you take a more Darwinian point of view the dynamics of the universe are such that as the universe evolved in time, complex systems arose out of the natural dynamics of the universe.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Dynamics
Hair
Natural
Point Of View
Universe
Views
Time View More
Complex
Darwinian
Evolved
View
Systems
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Of course, not everybody's willing to go out and do the experiments, but for the people who are willing to go out and do that, - if the experiments don't work, then it means it's not science.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Experiments
Mean
People
Willing
Work Science People
For The People
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Every physical system registers information, and just by evolving in time, by doing its thing, it changes that information, transforms that information, or, if you like, processes that information.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Evolve
Information
Process
Evolving
Processes
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Of course, one way of thinking about all of life and civilization is as being about how the world registers and processes information. Certainly that's what sex is about; that's what history is about.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Civilization
Sex
Thinking
Processes
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When you zap things with light to build quantum computers, you're hacking existing systems. You're hijacking the computation that's already happening in the universe, just like a hacker takes over someone else's computer.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Hacking
Hijacking
Light
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According to the standard model billions of years ago some little quantum fluctuation, perhaps a slightly lower density of matter, maybe right where we're sitting right now, caused our galaxy to start collapsing around here.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Billions
Density
Fluctuation
Galaxy
Quantum
Sitting
Years
Years Ago
Caused
According
Collapsing
Model
Lower
Standard
Perhaps
Slightly
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Programmed by quanta, physics gave rise first to chemistry and then to life; programmed by mutations and recombination, life gave rise to Shakespeare; programmed by experience and imagination, Shakespeare gave rise to Hamlet.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Imagination
Firsts
Mutation
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I would suggest, merely as a metaphor here, but also as the basis for a scientific program to investigate the computational capacity of the universe, that this is also a reasonable explanation for why the universe is complex.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Capacity
Explanation
Metaphor
Program
Reasonable
Basis
Complex
Computational
Investigate
Merely
Scientific
Suggest
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By separating the function of adaptation from the function of maintaining the integrity of individual genes, sex allows much greater diversity while still keeping genes whole. Sex is not only fun, it is good engineering practice.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Fun
Integrity
Sex
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Instead of having to be a member of the Royal Society to do science, the way you had to be in England in the 17th, 18th, centuries today pretty much anybody who wants to do it can, and the information that they need to do it is there.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
England
Information
Needs
Royal
Want
Centuries
Member
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What's happened with society is that we have created these devices, computers, which already can register and process huge amounts of information, which is a significant fraction of the amount of information that human beings themselves, as a species, can process.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Computers
Computer
Devices
Human Beings
Information
Register
Significant
Species
Beings
Fraction
Huge Amounts
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[With quantum computers] you can calculate how many bits are in the universe, how much energy it takes to flip them, how much energy exists, and use that to rule out lots of things about the universe's history. Anything that takes more bit flips couldn't have happened.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Energy
Flip
Use
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For hundreds of millions of years, Sex was the most efficient method for propagating information of dubious provenance: the origins of all those snippets of junk DNA are lost in the sands of reproductive history. Move aside, Sex: the world-wide Web has usurped your role.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Dna
Moving
Sex
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The primary consequence of the computational nature of the universe is that the universe naturally generates complex systems, such as life. Although the basic laws of physics are comparatively simple in form, they give rise, because they are computationally universal, to systems of enormous complexity.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Giving
Law
Simple
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Quantum mechanics is just completely strange and counterintuitive. We can't believe that things can be here [in one place] and there [in another place] at the same time. And yet that's a fundamental piece of quantum mechanics. So then the question is, life is dealing us weird lemons, can we make some weird lemonade from this?
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Believe
Fundamentals
Pieces
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Unlike mathematical theorems, scientific results can't be proved. They can only be tested again and again, until only a fool would not believe them. I cannot prove that electrons exist..........if you don't believe in them I have a high voltage cattle prod I'm willing to apply as an argument on their behalf. Electrons speak for themselves.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Argument
Believe
Fool
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We couldn't build quantum computers unless the universe were quantum and computing. We can build such machines because the universe is storing and processing information in the quantum realm. When we build quantum computers, we're hijacking that underlying computation in order to make it do things we want: little and/or/not calculations. We're hacking into the universe.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Hijacking
Machines
Order
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Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics. All three are processes in which useful or accessible forms of some quantity, such as energy or money, are transformed into useless, inaccessible forms of the same quantity. That is not to say that these three processes don't have fringe benefits: taxes pay for roads and schools; the second law of thermodynamics drives cars, computers and metabolism; and death, at the very least, opens up tenured faculty positions.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Car
Law
School
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Science has an uncomfortable way of pushing human beings from center stage. In our prescientific stories, humans began as the focal point of Nature, living on an Earth that was the center of the universe. As the origins of the Earth and of mankind were investigated more carefully, it became clear that Nature had other interests beyond people, and the Earth was less central than previously hoped. Humankind was just one branch of the great family of life, and the Earth is a smallish planet orbiting an unexceptional sun quite far out on one arm of a run-of-the-mill spiral galaxy.
Seth Lloyd / Professor
Running
People
Stories
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