[FOM] Potgieter on hypercomputation

[Apostolos Syropoulos]

> On Mon, 13 Dec 2004, Vladimir Sazonov wrote:
>
> > It seems reasonable to assert that our Real World is closed at most
> > under addition (if closed at all - this is an idealization), but not
> > under multiplication. The latter leads very easily to physically
> > not existent exponential computations (2*2*2*...*2 = 2^1000 =
> > practical infinity). This leads to the conclusion that multiplication
> > and exponential are only partial functions, although computable.
>
 Well, nobody really knows whether there are limits to our universe. This
 means that even 2^1000 may not even close to what one may call infinity.
 In addition, let me just note that recently two researchers in
 astrophysics found evidence that space and time are not really discrete
 but rather continuous [1]. If these results will be verified, then I
 believe they will have a significant impact on our understanding of our
 cosmos and consequently on our views of what can and cannot be computed.

 A.S.

 @article{lieu03,
  author       = "Richard Lieu and Lloyd W. Hillman",
  title        = "{The Phase Coherence of Light from Extragalactic
                   Sources: Direct Evidence against First-Order
                   Planck-Scale Fluctuations in Time and Space}",
  journal      = "{The Astrophysical Journal Letters}",
  volume       = "585",
  number       = "2",
  pages        = "77--80",
  year         = 2003
}

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*Apostolos Syropoulos                                          *
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