From: Craig Presson (c_presson@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jul 17 1999 - 13:35:20 MDT
--- Bryan Moss <bryan.moss@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
> Freeman Craig Presson wrote:
>
> > [...] A lot of scientists, most famously Einstein, have
> > wondered what's "behind" QM.
[...]>
> Hypothetical Question: Einstein is right, God does not play dice. The
> mechanism behind QM is not only deterministic but also (feasibly)
> computable. Would this mean a piece of software that used this new theory
> could solve NP-complete problems on a conventional computer?
Ah, you've put your finger on just why I have trouble believing in the determinism fairy
(deterministic QM). Randomness, like entropy, is opaque -- information or structure that is
dispersed isn't retrievable or reconstructible.
Your implication seems quite sound to me, and it might be fun to tease out some of the
other consequences. There might even be a neat reductio ad absurdum nested in there (i.e., a
proof that QM cannot be contained in a deterministic theory). Then we'd know that to
violate the HUP or otherwise make QM deterministic, we have to violate one of the axioms said
proof requires -- that's assuming anyone still has an appetite for the problem.
I ought to take Max's advice and think about this post for three days or so, it's soooo
half-baked :-)
===
I use this address only when I am away from home. I have
reply-to set to dhr@iname.com and I read email sent to that
address from here, so please don't use the yahoo address.
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:04:30 MST