Re: Very Short Very Curious Paper on Complexity

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Sep 05 2002 - 00:23:16 MDT


See also:

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9806059
Quantum Mechanics and Algorithmic Randomness

A long sequence of tosses of a classical coin produces an apparently
random bit string, but classical randomness is an illusion: the
algorithmic information content of a classically-generated bit string
lies almost entirely in the description of initial conditions. This
letter presents a simple argument that, by contrast, a sequence of bits
produced by tossing a quantum coin is, almost certainly, genuinely
(algorithmically) random. This result can be interpreted as a
strengthening of Bell's no-hidden-variables theorem, and relies on
causality and quantum entanglement in a manner similar to Bell's
original argument.

It is the paper referred to in the short note. Interesting, but
seems to rely on quantum copying.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:43 MST