Seth Lloyd
Seth Lloyd
Seth Lloydis a professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He refers to himself as a "quantum mechanic"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
CountryUnited States of America
law life-is metabolism
Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes, and the second law of thermodynamics.
law breaking-down break
At some point, Moore's law will break down.
school law car
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.
simple law giving
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.
accessible american-educator form knowledge principle public science
So science is basically, at it most fundamental level, a public form of knowledge, a form of knowledge that is in principle accessible to everybody.
american-educator evolving existing merely processes time transforms
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.
american-educator exact famous programs quantum
Similarly, another famous little quantum fluctuation that programs you is the exact configuration of your DNA.
american-educator building computers processes quantum since terms thinking
Since I've been building quantum computers I've come around to thinking about the world in terms of how it processes information.
american-educator available bit computers degree information neat quantum
The other neat thing about these quantum computers is that they're also storing a bit of information on every available degree of freedom.
american-educator complexity entirely maybe surprised
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.
american-educator held promise science
This democratization of science, this making it public, is in a sense the realization of a promise that science has held for a long time.
american-educator becoming daily impacts interested lives people realize science
People are becoming more and more interested in science, and that's because they realize that science impacts their daily lives in important ways.
alone american-educator aside issues limit packaging setting stability unlikely
Clearly, packaging issues alone make it unlikely that this limit can be obtained, even setting aside the difficulties of stability and control.
american-educator hope metaphor picture precise
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.