From: Ray Cromwell <rjc@access.digex.net>
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 94 20:30:38 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: GUT and NP
Message-ID: <199407270329.AA19374@access3.digex.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



  Bezerk's original comment makes two assumptions.

1) continuum phenomena are real and space is not merely quantized
at a level which is undetectable by experiment (just because
physics models it as a continuum doesn't mean it is so)

2) all of this precision actually makes a difference

   For instance, at the level of brain chemistry, who cares
about quantum precision when thermal noises will swamp it anyway?
(the Penrose argument even goes as far as assuming quantum gravity, a force
pitifully weak, as a signficant factor)

   One of the reasons digital manipulation became popular was 
because analog data was too prone to error. Why will a quantum
computer, which seems even more sensitive to external perturbation,
be any different?

  And regardless of whether quantum computers work or not, they are
still algorithmic if they can be simulated (however slowly) by
a turing machine. It's a rigorous mathematical definition.  Claiming
otherwise uses algorithm in a manner different than was intended. 
It's like the way Ludwig Plutonium solves all those famous problems
in sci.math by assuming different definitions of primality, etc.
Quantum computers might be faster than classical computers, but
non-algorithmic, I don't think so.