Physics Of Computation
   HOME
*





Physics Of Computation
The study of the physics of computation relates to understanding the fundamental physical limits of computers. This field has led to the investigation of how thermodynamics limits information processing, the understanding of chaos and dynamical systems, and a rapidly growing effort to invent new quantum computers. See also important publications in physics of computation See also * Digital physics * Computation * Theory of computation * Reversible computation * Hypercomputation * Limits to computation * Bremermann's limit * Bekenstein bound In physics, the Bekenstein bound (named after Jacob Bekenstein) is an upper limit on the thermodynamic entropy ''S'', or Shannon entropy ''H'', that can be contained within a given finite region of space which has a finite amount of energy—or c ... References Lloyd, S., 2000, Ultimate physical limits of computation, ''Nature'', 406:1047-1054. Computational physics Applied and interdisciplinary physics {{compu-physics-s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Computation
Computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that follows a well-defined model (e.g., an algorithm). Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as ''computers''. An especially well-known discipline of the study of computation is computer science. Physical process of Computation Computation can be seen as a purely physical process occurring inside a closed physical system called a computer. Examples of such physical systems are digital computers, mechanical computers, quantum computers, DNA computers, molecular computers, microfluidics-based computers, analog computers, and wetware computers. This point of view has been adopted by the physics of computation, a branch of theoretical physics, as well as the field of natural computing. An even more radical point of view, pancomputationalism (inaudible word), is the postulate of digital physics that argues that the evolution of the universe is itself ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Theory Of Computation
In theoretical computer science and mathematics, the theory of computation is the branch that deals with what problems can be solved on a model of computation, using an algorithm, how efficiently they can be solved or to what degree (e.g., approximate solutions versus precise ones). The field is divided into three major branches: automata theory and formal languages, computability theory, and computational complexity theory, which are linked by the question: ''"What are the fundamental capabilities and limitations of computers?".'' In order to perform a rigorous study of computation, computer scientists work with a mathematical abstraction of computers called a model of computation. There are several models in use, but the most commonly examined is the Turing machine. Computer scientists study the Turing machine because it is simple to formulate, can be analyzed and used to prove results, and because it represents what many consider the most powerful possible "reasonable" mo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Nature (journal)
''Nature'' is a British weekly scientific journal founded and based in London, England. As a multidisciplinary publication, ''Nature'' features peer-reviewed research from a variety of academic disciplines, mainly in science and technology. It has core editorial offices across the United States, continental Europe, and Asia under the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature. ''Nature'' was one of the world's most cited scientific journals by the Science Edition of the 2019 ''Journal Citation Reports'' (with an ascribed impact factor of 42.778), making it one of the world's most-read and most prestigious academic journals. , it claimed an online readership of about three million unique readers per month. Founded in autumn 1869, ''Nature'' was first circulated by Norman Lockyer and Alexander Macmillan as a public forum for scientific innovations. The mid-20th century facilitated an editorial expansion for the journal; ''Nature'' redoubled its efforts in exp ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bekenstein Bound
In physics, the Bekenstein bound (named after Jacob Bekenstein) is an upper limit on the thermodynamic entropy ''S'', or Shannon entropy ''H'', that can be contained within a given finite region of space which has a finite amount of energy—or conversely, the maximal amount of information required to perfectly describe a given physical system down to the quantum level. It implies that the information of a physical system, or the information necessary to perfectly describe that system, must be finite if the region of space and the energy are finite. In computer science this implies that non-finite models such as Turing machines are not realizable as finite devices. Equations The universal form of the bound was originally found by Jacob Bekenstein in 1981 as the inequality : S \leq \frac, where ''S'' is the entropy, ''k'' is the Boltzmann constant, ''R'' is the radius of a sphere that can enclose the given system, ''E'' is the total mass–energy including any rest masses, ''ħ' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Bremermann's Limit
Bremermann's limit, named after Hans-Joachim Bremermann, is a limit on the maximum rate of computation that can be achieved in a self-contained system in the material universe. It is derived from Einstein's mass-energy equivalency and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and is '' c''2/'' h'' ≈ 1.36 × 1050 bits per second per kilogram. This value is important when designing cryptographic algorithms, as it can be used to determine the minimum size of encryption keys or hash values required to create an algorithm that could never be cracked by a brute-force search. For example, a computer with the mass of the entire Earth operating at Bremermann's limit could perform approximately 1075 mathematical computations per second. If one assumes that a cryptographic key can be tested with only one operation, then a typical 128-bit key could be cracked in under 10−36 seconds. However, a 256-bit key (which is already in use in some systems) would take about two minutes t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Limits To Computation
The limits of computation are governed by a number of different factors. In particular, there are several physical and practical limits to the amount of computation or data storage that can be performed with a given amount of mass, volume, or energy. Hardware limits or physical limits Processing and memory density * The Bekenstein bound limits the amount of information that can be stored within a spherical volume to the entropy of a black hole with the same surface area. * Thermodynamics limit the data storage of a system based on its energy, number of particles and particle modes. In practice, it is a stronger bound than the Bekenstein bound. Processing speed * Bremermann's limit is the maximum computational speed of a self-contained system in the material universe, and is based on mass–energy versus quantum uncertainty constraints. Communication delays * The Margolus–Levitin theorem sets a bound on the maximum computational speed per unit of energy: 6 × 1033 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Hypercomputation
Hypercomputation or super-Turing computation refers to models of computation that can provide outputs that are not Turing-computable. Super-Turing computing, introduced at the early 1990's by Hava Siegelmann, refers to such neurological inspired, biological and physical realizable computing; It became the mathematical foundations of Lifelong Machine Learning. Hypercomputation, introduced as a field of science in the late 1990s, is said to be based on the Super Turing but it also includes constructs which are philosophical. For example, a machine that could solve the halting problem would be a hypercomputer; so too would one that can correctly evaluate every statement in Peano arithmetic. The Church–Turing thesis states that any "computable" function that can be computed by a mathematician with a pen and paper using a finite set of simple algorithms, can be computed by a Turing machine. Hypercomputers compute functions that a Turing machine cannot and which are, hence, not computa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Reversible Computation
Reversible computing is any model of computation where the computational process, to some extent, is time-reversible. In a model of computation that uses deterministic transitions from one state of the abstract machine to another, a necessary condition for reversibility is that the relation of the mapping from states to their successors must be one-to-one. Reversible computing is a form of unconventional computing. Due to the unitarity of quantum mechanics, quantum circuits are reversible, as long as they do not "collapse" the quantum states they operate on. Reversibility There are two major, closely related types of reversibility that are of particular interest for this purpose: physical reversibility and logical reversibility. A process is said to be ''physically reversible'' if it results in no increase in physical entropy; it is isentropic. There is a style of circuit design ideally exhibiting this property that is referred to as charge recovery logic, adiabatic circui ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Computation
Computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that follows a well-defined model (e.g., an algorithm). Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as ''computers''. An especially well-known discipline of the study of computation is computer science. Physical process of Computation Computation can be seen as a purely physical process occurring inside a closed physical system called a computer. Examples of such physical systems are digital computers, mechanical computers, quantum computers, DNA computers, molecular computers, microfluidics-based computers, analog computers, and wetware computers. This point of view has been adopted by the physics of computation, a branch of theoretical physics, as well as the field of natural computing. An even more radical point of view, pancomputationalism (inaudible word), is the postulate of digital physics that argues that the evolution of the universe is itself ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Limits Of Computation
The limits of computation are governed by a number of different factors. In particular, there are several physical and practical limits to the amount of computation or data storage that can be performed with a given amount of mass, volume, or energy. Hardware limits or physical limits Processing and memory density * The Bekenstein bound limits the amount of information that can be stored within a spherical volume to the entropy of a black hole with the same surface area. * Thermodynamics limit the data storage of a system based on its energy, number of particles and particle modes. In practice, it is a stronger bound than the Bekenstein bound. Processing speed * Bremermann's limit is the maximum computational speed of a self-contained system in the material universe, and is based on mass–energy versus quantum uncertainty constraints. Communication delays * The Margolus–Levitin theorem sets a bound on the maximum computational speed per unit of energy: 6 × 1033 op ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Digital Physics
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. The hypothesis that the universe is a digital computer was proposed by Konrad Zuse in his 1969 book ''Rechnender Raum'' ("''Calculating Space''"). The term ''digital physics'' was coined by Edward Fredkin in 1978, who later came to prefer the term digital philosophy. 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. Extant models of digital physics are incompatible with the existence of several continuous characters of physical symmetries, e.g., rotational symm ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


List Of Publications In Physics
This is a list of important publications in physics, organized by field. Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important: *Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic *Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly *Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world or has had a massive impact on the teaching of physics. Applied physics Accelerator physics * :The Swedish physicist Gustav Ising was the first one to publish the basic concept of a linear accelerator (in this case, as part of a cathode ray tube). * :The Norwegian physicist Rolf Widerøe took Ising's idea and expanded it. Later, he built the first operational linear accelerator. * * :These two articles describe the betatron concept and the first experimental data of a working betatron, built by Donald William Kerst. * * :These publications were the first to introduce the idea of strong focusing to particle beams ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]