From: Emil Gilliam (emil@emilgilliam.com)
Date: Wed Apr 28 2004 - 23:19:55 MDT
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0404510
Universal Limits on Computation
Authors: Lawrence M. Krauss (1), Glenn D. Starkman (1 and 2) ((1)
Case Western Reserve University, (2) CERN)
Comments: 3 pages including eps figure, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett
Report-no: CWRU-PA 12-04
The physical limits to computation have been under active scrutiny over
the past decade or two, as theoretical investigations of the possible
impact of quantum mechanical processes on computing have begun to make
contact with realizable experimental configurations. We demonstrate
here that the observed acceleration of the Universe can produce a
universal limit on the total amount of information that can be stored
and processed in the future, putting an ultimate limit on future
technology for any civilization, including a time-limit on Moore's Law.
The limits we derive are stringent, and include the possibilities that
the computing performed is either distributed or local. A careful
consideration of the effect of horizons on information processing is
necessary for this analysis, which suggests that the total amount of
information that can be processed by any observer is significantly less
than the Hawking-Beckenstein entropy associated with the existence of
an event horizon in an accelerating universe.
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