David Elieser Deutsch ( ; born 18 May 1953) is a British

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. He is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the

Centre for Quantum Computation The Centre for Quantum Computation (CQC) is an alliance of quantum information research groups at the University of Oxford. It was founded by Artur Ekert in 1998. Until recently, the CQC also included research groups at the University of Camb ...

(CQC) in the

Clarendon Laboratory The Clarendon Laboratory, located on Parks Road within the Science Area in Oxford, England (not to be confused with the Clarendon Building, also in Oxford), is part of the Department of Physics at Oxford University. It houses the atomic and ...

of the University of Oxford. He pioneered the field of

quantum computation 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. Though ...

by formulating a description for a

quantum Turing machine A quantum Turing machine (QTM) or universal quantum computer is an abstract machine used to model the effects of a quantum computer. It provides a simple model that captures all of the power of quantum computation—that is, any quantum algori ...

, as well as specifying an algorithm designed to run on a quantum computer. He has also proposed the use of entangled states and Bell's theorem for

quantum key distribution Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a secure communication method which implements a cryptographic protocol involving components of quantum mechanics. It enables two parties to produce a shared random secret key known only to them, which can then b ...

and is a proponent of the

many-worlds interpretation The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts that the universal wavefunction is objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse. This implies that all possible outcomes of quantum ...

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...

Early life and education

Deutsch was born into a

Jewish family Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites"" ...

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

, Israel on 18 May 1953, the son of Oskar and Tikva Deutsch. In London, David attended Geneva House school in

Cricklewood Cricklewood is an area of London, England, which spans the boundaries of three London boroughs: Barnet to the east, Brent to the west and Camden to the south-east. The Crown pub, now the Clayton Crown Hotel, is a local landmark and lies north ...

(his parents owned and ran the Alma restaurant on Cricklewood Broadway), followed by William Ellis School in Highgate (then a voluntary aided school in north London) before reading

Natural Sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeat ...

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refound ...

and taking

Part III of the Mathematical Tripos Part III of the Mathematical Tripos (officially Master of Mathematics/Master of Advanced Study) is a one-year Masters-level taught course in mathematics offered at the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge. It is regarded as one of th ...

. He went on to

Wolfson College, Oxford Wolfson College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Located in north Oxford along the River Cherwell, Wolfson is an all-graduate college with around sixty governing body fellows, in addition to both research a ...

for his doctorate in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

and wrote his thesis on

quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and ...

curved space-time General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. G ...

supervised by

Dennis Sciama Dennis William Siahou Sciama, (; 18 November 1926 – 18/19 December 1999) was a British physicist who, through his own work and that of his students, played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War. He was the PhD ...

and

Philip Candelas Philip Candelas, (born 24 October 1951, London, UK) is a British physicist and mathematician. After 20 years at the University of Texas at Austin, he served as Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford until 2020 and is a Fe ...

Career and research

His work on

quantum algorithms In quantum computing, a quantum algorithm is an algorithm which runs on a realistic model of quantum computation, the most commonly used model being the quantum circuit model of computation. A classical (or non-quantum) algorithm is a finite sequ ...

began with a 1985 paper, later expanded in 1992 along with Richard Jozsa to produce the

Deutsch–Jozsa algorithm The Deutsch–Jozsa algorithm is a deterministic quantum algorithm proposed by David Deutsch and Richard Jozsa in 1992 with improvements by Richard Cleve, Artur Ekert, Chiara Macchiavello, and Michele Mosca in 1998. Although of little current pra ...

, one of the first examples of a quantum algorithm that is exponentially faster than any possible deterministic classical algorithm. In his 1985 paper, he also suggests the use of

entangled state Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in a way such that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of ...

s and Bell's theorem for

. In his nomination for election as a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...

(FRS) in 2008, his contributions were described as:

" avinglaid the foundations of the quantum theory of computation, and has subsequently made or participated in many of the most important advances in the field, including the discovery of the first quantum algorithms, the theory of quantum logic gates and quantum computational networks, the first quantum error-correction scheme, and several fundamental quantum universality results. He has set the agenda for worldwide research efforts in this new, interdisciplinary field, made progress in understanding its philosophical implications (via a variant of the many-universes interpretation) and made it comprehensible to the general public, notably in his book The Fabric of Reality."

Since 2012, he has been working on

constructor theory Constructor theory is a proposal for a new mode of explanation in fundamental physics in the language of ergodic theory, developed by physicists David Deutsch and Chiara Marletto, at the University of Oxford, since 2012. Constructor theory expr ...

, an attempt at generalizing the quantum theory of computation to cover not just computation but all physical processes. Together with Chiara Marletto, he published a paper in December 2014 entitled ''Constructor theory of information'', that conjectures that information can be expressed solely in terms of which transformations of physical systems are possible and which are impossible.

''The Fabric of Reality''

In his 1997 book ''The Fabric of Reality'', Deutsch details his "Theory of Everything". It aims not at the reduction of everything to particle physics, but rather mutual support among

multiversal The multiverse is a hypothetical group of multiple universes. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describe them. The di ...

, computational, epistemological, and evolutionary principles. His theory of everything is somewhat emergentist rather than reductive. There are four strands to his theory: # Hugh Everett's

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, qua ...

, "the first and most important of the four strands." #

Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...

, especially its anti-inductivism and requiring a realist (non-instrumental) interpretation of scientific theories, as well as its emphasis on taking seriously those bold conjectures that resist falsification. #

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...

's theory of computation, especially as developed in Deutsch's Turing principle, in which the

Universal Turing machine In computer science, a universal Turing machine (UTM) is a Turing machine that can simulate an arbitrary Turing machine on arbitrary input. The universal machine essentially achieves this by reading both the description of the machine to be simu ...

is replaced by Deutsch's

universal quantum computer A quantum Turing machine (QTM) or universal quantum computer is an abstract machine used to model the effects of a quantum computer. It provides a simple model that captures all of the power of quantum computation—that is, any quantum algorith ...

. ("''The'' theory of computation is now the quantum theory of computation.") #

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ...

' refinement of

Darwinian Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that ...

evolutionary theory and the modern evolutionary synthesis, especially the ideas of replicator and meme as they integrate with Popperian problem-solving (the

epistemological Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

strand).

Invariants

In a 2009

TED talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

, Deutsch expounded a criterion for scientific explanation, which is to formulate invariants: "State an explanation ublicly, so that it can be dated and verified by others laterthat remains invariant n the face of apparent change, new information, or unexpected conditions. Also available fro
YouTube
: "A bad explanation is easy to vary." : "The search for hard-to-vary explanations is the origin of all progress" : "That is the most important fact about the physical world." Invariance as a fundamental aspect of a scientific account of reality had long been part of philosophy of science: for example, Friedel Weinert's book ''The Scientist as Philosopher'' (2004) noted the presence of the theme in many writings from around 1900 onward, such as works by

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "Th ...

(1902),

Ernst Cassirer Ernst Alfred Cassirer ( , ; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic philosophy of science. A ...

(1920),

Max Born Max Born (; 11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) was a German physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a ...

(1949 and 1953),

Paul Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the Univer ...

(1958),

Olivier Costa de Beauregard Olivier Costa de Beauregard (6 November 1911 - 5 February 2007) was a French engineer, physicist and philosopher. He spent much of his career studying quantum physics and relativity. From the early 1950s, he also wrote extensively about his belief ...

(1966),

Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner ( hu, Wigner Jenő Pál, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his co ...

(1967),

Lawrence Sklar Lawrence Sklar (born June 25, 1938) is an American philosopher. He is the Carl G. Hempel and William K. Frankena Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. Education and career Sklar was born in Baltimore, Ma ...

(1974), Michael Friedman (1983), John D. Norton (1992), Nicholas Maxwell (1993),

Alan Cook Sir Alan Hugh Cook FRS (2 December 1922 – 23 July 2004) was an English physicist who specialised in geophysics, astrophysics and particularly precision measurement. Early life and family Cook was born in Felsted, Essex in 1922. He was the el ...

(1994),

Alistair Cameron Crombie Alistair Cameron Crombie (4 November 1915 – 9 February 1996) was an Australian historian of science who began his career as a zoologist. He was noted for his contributions to research on competition between species before turning to histor ...

(1994),

Margaret Morrison Margaret Morrison (born January 1960) is an American fine art painter and professor. Morrison is a tenured professor of drawing and painting at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the University of Georgia (UGA). Early life Morrison, born in Castlepar ...

(1995),

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfl ...

(1997),

Robert Nozick Robert Nozick (; November 16, 1938 – January 23, 2002) was an American philosopher. He held the Joseph Pellegrino University Professorship at Harvard University,

(2001), and Tim Maudlin (2002).

''The Beginning of Infinity''

Deutsch's second book, ''The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World'', was published on 31 March 2011. In this book, he views the European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries as near the beginning of a potentially unending sequence of purposeful knowledge creation. He examines the nature of knowledge,

meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ...

s, and how and why

creativity Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed lit ...

evolved in humans.

Awards and honours

''The Fabric of Reality'' was shortlisted for the Rhone-Poulenc science book award in 1998. Deutsch was awarded the

Dirac Prize Distributed Research using Advanced Computing (DiRAC) is an integrated supercomputing facility used for research in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology in the United Kingdom. DiRAC makes use of multi-core processors and provides a variety of ...

of the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physic ...

in 1998, and the Edge of Computation Science Prize in 2005. In 2017, he received the Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). Deutsch is linked to

through his doctoral advisor

, whose doctoral advisor was Dirac. Deutsch was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2008. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: In 2020 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the

Cybernetics Society The Cybernetics Society is a UK-based learned society that exists to promote the understanding of Cybernetics. The core activity of the Cybernetics Society is the organization and facilitation of scientific meetings, conferences, and social events. ...

. In 2018, he received the Micius Quantum Prize. In 2021, he was awarded the Isaac Newton Medal and Prize. On September 22, 2022, he was awarded with the Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics (sharing it with 3 others)

Personal life

Deutsch is a founding member of the parenting and educational method '' Taking Children Seriously''. Deutsch supported

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time, GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 Central Eur ...

, with his advocacy regularly being quoted by the then government adviser,

Dominic Cummings Dominic Mckenzie Cummings (born 25 November 1971) is a British political strategist who served as Chief Adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 24 July 2019 until Cummings resigned on 13 November 2020. From 2007 to 2014, he was a ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Deutsch, David People from Haifa Israeli Jews Israeli physicists Israeli writers Israeli computer scientists Quantum computing British Jews British physicists British atheists 1953 births Jewish atheists Israeli atheists Jewish physicists Living people Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Royal Society Theoretical physicists People educated at William Ellis School Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge Alumni of Wolfson College, Oxford Academics of the University of Oxford Quantum physicists Quantum information scientists