Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information
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For a physicist, all the world's information. The Universe and its workings are the ebb and flow of information. We are all transient patterns of information, passing on the recipe for our basic forms to future generations using a four-letter digital code called DNA. In this engaging and mind-stretching account, Vlatko Vedral considers some of the deepest questions about the Universe and considers the implications of interpreting it in terms of information. He explains the nature of information, the idea of entropy, and the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics. He describes the bizarre effects of quantum behaviour - effects such as 'entanglement', which Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance' and explores cutting edge work on the harnessing quantum effects in hyperfast quantum computers, and how recent evidence suggests that the weirdness of the quantum world, once thought limited to the tiniest scales, may reach into the macro world.Vedral finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The answers he considers are exhilarating, drawing upon the work of distinguished physicist John Wheeler. The ideas challenge our concept of the nature of particles, of time, of determinism, and of reality itself.
Acknowledgements ixPrologue 11 Creation Ex Nihilo: Something from Nothing 52 Information for all Seasons 14Part 1 253 Back to Basics: Bits and Pieces 254 Digital Romance: Life is a Four-Letter Word 375 Murphy's Law: I Knew this Would Happen to Me 576 Place Your Bets: In It to Win It 777 Social Informatics; Get Connected or Die Tryin' 91Part 2 1118 Quantum Schmuntum: Lights, Camera, Action! 1169 Surfing the Waves: Hyper-Fast Computers 13410 Children of the Aimless Chance: Randomness versus Determinism 152Part 3 17111 Sand Reckoning: Whose Information is It, Anyway? 17312 Destruction ab Toto: Nothing from Something 189Epilogue 215Notes 219Index 227
