Re: Little exercise

From: A. Wolf <a.lupine.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:21:23 -0500

>> No. The tape isn't a standard Turing tape because it's
>> infinitely long. :)
>
> ?

You're presuming the Universe contains finite data. Most cosmological
evidence suggests that the Universe is flat and unbounded, which implies it
would be infinite in size. If space is not quantized (which would be
difficult to handle mathematically, anyway), then there's an infinite amount
of information even in a finite universe.

> He could dovetail. (The standard way to emulate parallelism in a
> linear way).

Of course. But this still only works on finite data.

I think you're confusing "can emulate with a Turing machine" with "is
computable". Everything that is computable /in finite time and space/ can
be emulated on a Turing machine (if the Church-Turing thesis is true). But
infinite data sets cannot be handled directly on a Turing machine. There's
no model for handling infinite data, that I know of anyway.

Anna


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Received on Wed Nov 19 2008 - 18:21:58 PST

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