The study of the physics of
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 esp ...
relates to understanding the fundamental
physical limits of computers. This field has led to the investigation of how
thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws o ...
limits information processing, the understanding of
chaos
Chaos or CHAOS may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Fictional elements
* Chaos (''Kinnikuman'')
* Chaos (''Sailor Moon'')
* Chaos (''Sesame Park'')
* Chaos (''Warhammer'')
* Chaos, in ''Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy''
* Cha ...
and
dynamical systems
In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...
, and a rapidly growing effort to invent new
quantum computer
Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Thoug ...
s.
See also
important publications in physics of computation
See also
*
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 ...
*
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 esp ...
*
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., ...
*
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 co ...
*
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, ...
*
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 device, data storage that can be performed with a given amount of m ...
*
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 Heisenb ...
*
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 co ...
References
Lloyd, S., 2000, Ultimate physical limits of computation,
''Nature'', 406:1047-1054.
Computational physics
Applied and interdisciplinary physics
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