But how much information does the apple embody? How many bits are there in an apple?” I placed the apple on the table and turned to the board to perform a short calculation. “Clearly, there are many types of information contained in this apple.
And last, but not least, an apple contains free energy-the calories of bit-rich energy that our bodies need to function.” I took a bite of the apple. More directly, the genetic code locked in the seeds of an apple programs the structure of future apple trees. Down the line, it was in the trajectory of a falling apple that Newton traced the universal laws of gravitation, and the curved surface of the apple is a metaphor for Einstein’s curved spacetime. First of all, the apple is the fruit of knowledge ‘whose mortal taste brought death into the world, and all our woe.’ It conveys information about good and evil. “This apple is a good ‘it.’ Apples have long been associated with information. “Things, or ‘its,’ arise out of information, or ‘bits,’” I continued, nervously tossing the apple in the air. I was beginning to wonder if that had been a good idea, but it was too late to back down now. The grand old man of astrophysics and quantum gravity, John Archibald Wheeler, had challenged me to give a talk on the subject “It from Bit.” I had accepted the challenge. The chapel in the seventeenth-century convent that housed the Santa Fe Institute for the study of complex systems was filled with the usual collection of physicists, biologists, economists, and mathematicians, with a leavening of Nobel laureates. PROLOGUE The Apple and the Universe “In the beginning was the bit,” I began. Personal Note: The Consolation of Information Acknowledgments Further Reading A Note About the Author Copyright file:///C|/Lloyd-ProgrammingUniverse/4.htm (1 of 2) 15:28:56įile:///C|/Lloyd-ProgrammingUniverse/4.htm (2 of 2) 15:28:56 QC174.12.L57 2006 530.12-dc22 2005050408 v1.0įile:///C|/Lloyd-ProgrammingUniverse/2.htm 15:28:56įile:///C|/Lloyd-ProgrammingUniverse/3.htm 15:28:56Ĭontents Title Page Dedication Prologue: The Apple and the Universe PART ONE: THE BIG PICTURE CHAPTER ONE: Introduction CHAPTER TWO: Computation CHAPTER THREE: The Computational Universe PART TWO: A CLOSER LOOK CHAPTER FOUR: Information and Physical Systems CHAPTER FIVE: Quantum Mechanics CHAPTER SIX: Atoms at Work CHAPTER SEVEN: The Universal Computer CHAPTER EIGHT: Complexity Simplified Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lloyd, Seth, Programming the universe : a quantum computer scientist takes on the cosmos / by Seth Lloyd. Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Published in the United States by Alfred A. KNOPF Copyright © 2006 by Seth Lloyd All rights reserved. THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A.