Is the Universe Actually a Giant Quantum Computer?

Is the Universe Actually a Giant Quantum Computer?


by Alexandra Churikova

Just like a quantum computer, physical processes involve the exchange and processing of information. Lloyd explains that when two electrons interact, their velocities and spins interact just like the patterns of firing neurons do in the brains of two businessmen talking on the phone. The amount of information lost during a process is related to how complex the encoding of information is. Lloyd compares this to long division: the results of the intermediate steps in long division are useless, or “junk” information (Lloyd, 2007). Physicists want to know the relevant information as well as this discarded information.

Think about your laptop; what is the limit to the amount of information it can process? There are two limitations; the first being that most of the energy is locked up in the mass of the computer itself, and the second being that a computer uses many electrical signals to just register one bit. Perhaps the information of the universe is limited in the same way. Just like any natural process, how fast a computer can process information must be limited by its energy and the number of degrees of freedom it possesses.

Ed Fredkin first proposed that the universe could be a computer in the 1960’s, as well as Konrad Zuse who came up with the idea independently. In their view, the universe could be a type of computer called a cellular automaton, which describes a dynamic system that is broken apart into black and white grids, in which cells gather information from the surrounding cells on whether or not to change color (Lloyd, 2007). This is similar to the way a line or moving colony of ants might share information between each other about their surroundings, signaling to each other whether or not to follow a food trail.