Computation Quotes

• Quantum computation is a distinctively new way of harnessing nature. It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes.

  David Deutsch

  Technology, Way, Firsts

  "The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications". Book by David Deutsch. Chapter 9, 1997.

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• If we suppose that many natural phenomena are in effect computations, the study of computer science can tell us about the kinds of natural phenomena that can occur.

  Rudy Rucker

  Study, Kind, Computer

  "Adventures In Gnarly Computation". www.rudyrucker.com. October 2005.

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• A computation is a process that obeys finitely describable rules.

  Rudy Rucker

  Process

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• Computations are everywhere, once you begin to look at things in a certain way.

  Rudy Rucker

  Rude, Looks, Way

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• Lately I’ve been working to convince myself that everything is a computation.

  Rudy Rucker

  Convince

  "Adventures In Gnarly Computation". www.rudyrucker.com. October 2005.

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• I have not proved that the universe is, in fact, a digital computer and that it's capable of performing universal computation, but it's plausible that it is.

  Seth Lloyd

  Digital, Facts, Computer

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• All physical systems can be thought of as registering and processing information, and how one wishes to define computation will determine your view of what computation consists of.

  Seth Lloyd

  Views, Wish, Information

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• If you think of your life as a kind of computation, it's quite abundantly clear that there's not going to be a final answer and there won't be anything particularly wonderful about having the computation halt!

  Rudy Rucker

  Thinking, Finals, Answers

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• The desire to economize time and mental effort in arithmetical computations, and to eliminate human liability to error is probably as old as the science of arithmetic itself.

  Howard Aiken

  Errors, Effort, Desire

  "Proposed Automatic Calculating Machine". Paper by Howard H. Aiken, dl.acm.org. 1937.

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• One of the things that I've been doing recently in my scientific research is to ask this question: Is the universe actually capable of performing things like digital computations?

  Seth Lloyd

  Research, Digital, Performing

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• Computer scientists have so far worked on developing powerful programming languages that make it possible to solve the technical problems of computation. Little effort has gone toward devising the languages of interaction.

  Donald A. Norman

  Powerful, Effort, Gone

  "The Design of Everyday Things". Book by Don Norman, ch. 6, 1988.

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• No sociologist should think himself too good, even in his old age, to make tens of thousands of quite trivial computations in his head and perhaps for months at a time.

  Max Weber

  Thinking, Age, Months

  Max Weber (2009). “From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology”, p.135, Routledge

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• The theory of numbers, more than any other branch of mathematics, began by being an experimental science. Its most famous theorems have all been conjectured, sometimes a hundred years or more before they were proved; and they have been suggested by the evidence of a mass of computations.

  G. H. Hardy

  Years, Numbers, Branches

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• The question you raise, 'How can such a formulation lead to computations?' doesn't bother me in the least! Throughout my whole life as a mathematician, the possibility of making explicit, elegant computations has always come out by itself, as a byproduct of a thorough conceptual understanding of what was going on. Thus I never bothered about whether what would come out would be suitable for this or that, but just tried to understand - and it always turned out that understanding was all that mattered.

  Alexander Grothendieck

  Math, Understanding, Would Be

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• Calculators can only calculate - they cannot do mathematics.

  John A. Van de Walle

  Education, Knowledge, Math

  John A. Van de Walle (1994). “Elementary School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally”, Longman Publishing Group

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  Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

  Isaac Newton

  Math, Confusion, Simplicity

  Isaac Newton (1994). “Trattato sull Apocalisse”

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• Nature laughs at the difficulties of integration.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Nature, Laughing, Mathematics

  "The Armchair Science Reader". Book by Isabel S. Gordon and Sophie Sorkin, 1959.

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• Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Science, Technology, Telescopes

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• To me quantum computation is a new and deeper and better way to understand the laws of physics, and hence understanding physical reality as a whole.

  David Deutsch

  Reality, Law, Understanding

  "The Father of Quantum Computing". Interview with Quinn Norton, www.wired.com. February 15, 2007.

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• I spent 20 years doing research on regular and irregular verbs, not because I'm an obsessive language lover but because it seemed to me that they tapped into a fundamental distinction in language processing, indeed in cognitive processing, between memory lookup and rule-driven computation.

  Steven Pinker

  Memories, Years, Verbs

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• The term, information at your fingertips, is to remind people what a broad role the personal computer will be playing. It's not a computation device, it's not a word processing or a spreadsheet device. It's a window onto the world of information.

  Bill Gates

  People, Roles, World

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• There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.

  Winston Churchill

  Space, Duty, Obligation

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• We live beyond words, as also we live beyond computation and beyond theory.

  Wendell Berry

  Theory

  Wendell Berry (2001). “Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition”, Counterpoint Press

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• I have tried to avoid long numerical computations, thereby following Riemann's postulate that proofs should be given through ideas and not voluminous computations.

  David Hilbert

  Math, Ideas, Long

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• The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits—not animals…. There’s something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.

  Winston Churchill

  Time, Moving, Learning

  A radio speech broadcast from London to America on receiving the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws of the University of Rochester, June 16, 1941.

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