Bag of Beans

Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos
Seth Lloyd

This book from Seth Lloyd, a Professor of Quantum-Mechanical Engineering at MIT, aims to promote a quantum computational model of the universe. He argues that using information theory, we can resolve the problems that currently exist between Einstein’s theories of relativity, and quantum mechanics. By thinking of the universe as a very large information processing system, i.e. a quantum computer, we may be able to create a new Theory of Everything that unifies all of physics. Of course, this work is relatively new, so many details still need to be worked out. While the first half of the book does a great job of explaining quantum mechanics, the latter half of the book wanders into hand-waving territory when trying to explain the new model. However, the writer’s explanations are clear and concise and I found it hard to put this book down.

Rating: 8/10

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 11:41 and is filed under books, science/nature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.