Clare Horsman
When does a physical system compute?
Horsman, Clare; Stepney, Susan; Wagner, Rob C.; Kendon, Viv
Abstract
Computing is a high-level process of a physical system. Recent interest in non-standard computing systems, including quantum and biological computers, has brought this physical basis of computing to the forefront. There has been, however, no consensus on how to tell if a given physical system is acting as a computer or not; leading to confusion over novel computational devices, and even claims that every physical event is a computation. In this paper, we introduce a formal framework that can be used to determine whether a physical system is performing a computation. We demonstrate how the abstract computational level interacts with the physical device level, in comparison with the use of mathematical models in experimental science. This powerful formulation allows a precise description of experiments, technology, computation and simulation, giving our central conclusion: physical computing is the use of a physical system to predict the outcome of an abstract evolution. We give conditions for computing, illustrated using a range of non-standard computing scenarios. The framework also covers broader computing contexts, where there is no obvious human computer user. We introduce the notion of a ‘computational entity’, and its critical role in defining when computing is taking place in physical systems.
Citation
Horsman, C., Stepney, S., Wagner, R. C., & Kendon, V. (2014). When does a physical system compute?. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 470(2169), Article 20140182. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2014.0182
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Jun 11, 2014 |
Online Publication Date | Sep 8, 2014 |
Publication Date | Sep 8, 2014 |
Deposit Date | Nov 5, 2014 |
Publicly Available Date | Nov 12, 2014 |
Journal | Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences |
Print ISSN | 1364-5021 |
Electronic ISSN | 1471-2946 |
Publisher | The Royal Society |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 470 |
Issue | 2169 |
Article Number | 20140182 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2014.0182 |
Keywords | Computation, Physical computation, Computer. |
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Copyright Statement
© 2014 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
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