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

The dis-oriented author is a creationist. I believe in the Genesis account of creation. My reading this last year has included mathematics, foundations of computer science, linguistics,  artificial intelligence and modern physics/cosmology. I find that these topics overlap in many cases. Seth Lloyd's Programming the Universe combines all of these topics. In this book he takes a quantum computational view of the universe.

I have been reading quite a bit about String Theory lately as a way of building a quantum mechanical cosmology. With a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science, I found this book absolutely irresistible.

As a creationist I find this study fascinating.

After reading Brian Greene's Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos I have been looking into String Theory. String Theory is an attempt to unify Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. The problem that plagued 20th century physics was that the Einstein's Relativity described the behavior of large objects (like planets) but was inadequate for describing the behavior of subatomic particles. The subatomic world behaved quite differently and was best understood by Quantum Mechanics.

String Theory attempts to define one model for Relativistic and Quantum Mechanical behavior. The problem is that many of the tenets of String theory lack experimental confirmation. Reading on String Theory is sometimes more like reading philosophy than science.

In this book Lloyd provides a credible alternative to String Theory in a quantum computational approach to cosmology. Many of the principles I learned while studying math and computer science come into play like Computability and the Halting Problem. I think this book would be difficult reading for anyone without a background in Math or Computer Science. In fact I had to read it twice, the second time with a pencil and paper in order to really understand it.

A unique approach to a fascinating topic.

Programming the Universe gets 4 of 5 dis-oriented smileys

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