Limits of classical world with finite information

Computer simulations are getting more and more common in physics. Here we examine the underlying assumption that Nature can be simulated with classical bits. We first postulate that every physical object can be encoded into a finite number of classical bits. We allow the bits to have an unknown but...

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Main Author: Ganardi, Ray Fellix
Other Authors: Tomasz Paterek
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2015
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Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/63454
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-634542023-02-28T23:11:18Z Limits of classical world with finite information Ganardi, Ray Fellix Tomasz Paterek School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences DRNTU::Science::Physics::Atomic physics::Quantum theory Computer simulations are getting more and more common in physics. Here we examine the underlying assumption that Nature can be simulated with classical bits. We first postulate that every physical object can be encoded into a finite number of classical bits. We allow the bits to have an unknown but fixed probability distribution. The second postulate is that measurements can be computed as deterministic functions on these bits. It is shown that we can model exponentially many measurements with n bits. We also derive the minimum precision that one needs in order to disprove this model in an experiment. Finally, imposing quantum mechanical restrictions on measurement devices we show that disproving the classical models with only about 100 bits is already practically impossible. Bachelor of Science in Physics 2015-05-13T09:19:09Z 2015-05-13T09:19:09Z 2015 2015 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/63454 en 25 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Science::Physics::Atomic physics::Quantum theory
spellingShingle DRNTU::Science::Physics::Atomic physics::Quantum theory
Ganardi, Ray Fellix
Limits of classical world with finite information
description Computer simulations are getting more and more common in physics. Here we examine the underlying assumption that Nature can be simulated with classical bits. We first postulate that every physical object can be encoded into a finite number of classical bits. We allow the bits to have an unknown but fixed probability distribution. The second postulate is that measurements can be computed as deterministic functions on these bits. It is shown that we can model exponentially many measurements with n bits. We also derive the minimum precision that one needs in order to disprove this model in an experiment. Finally, imposing quantum mechanical restrictions on measurement devices we show that disproving the classical models with only about 100 bits is already practically impossible.
author2 Tomasz Paterek
author_facet Tomasz Paterek
Ganardi, Ray Fellix
format Final Year Project
author Ganardi, Ray Fellix
author_sort Ganardi, Ray Fellix
title Limits of classical world with finite information
title_short Limits of classical world with finite information
title_full Limits of classical world with finite information
title_fullStr Limits of classical world with finite information
title_full_unstemmed Limits of classical world with finite information
title_sort limits of classical world with finite information
publishDate 2015
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/63454
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