Programming the Universe. Programming the Universe is a 2006 popular science book by Seth Lloyd, professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The book proposes that the universe is a quantum computer, and advances in the understanding of physics may come from viewing entropy as a phenomenon of information, rather than simply thermodynamics. Lloyd also postulates that the universe can be fully simulated using a quantum computer, however in the absence of a theory of quantum gravity, such a simulation is not yet possible.
[edit] Reviewer Corey S. Powell of The New York Times writes: In the space of 221 dense, frequently thrilling and occasionally exasperating pages, … tackles computer logic, thermodynamics, chaos theory, complexity, quantum mechanics, cosmology, consciousness, sex and the origin of life — throwing in, for good measure, a heartbreaking afterword that repaints the significance of all that has come before. Everything in the universe is made of bits. See also[edit] MechE - Seth Lloyd. Programming the Universe. Seth Lloyd | Programming the Universe. Seth Lloyd. Seth Lloyd (born 1960) is a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He refers to himself as a "quantum mechanic". Biography[edit] Lloyd was born on August 2, 1960. He graduated from Phillips Academy in 1978 and received a bachelor of arts degree from Harvard College in 1982. He earned a certificate of advanced study in mathematics and a master of philosophy degree from Cambridge University in 1983 and 1984, while on a Marshall Scholarship.
Lloyd was awarded a doctorate by Rockefeller University in 1988 (advisor Heinz Pagels) after submitting a thesis on Black Holes, Demons, and the Loss of Coherence: How Complex Systems Get Information, and What They Do With It. From 1988 to 1991, Lloyd was a postdoctoral fellow in the High Energy Physics Department at the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Murray Gell-Mann on applications of information to quantum-mechanical systems. Personal life[edit] Honors[edit] Works[edit] See also[edit]