The Limits of Computing

I found the above notes on Information Theory as applied to the limits of computing in my never ending quixotic and pretentious quest to look for a possible physical law of natural selection.

They are from a series of lectures at the University of Florida by Michael Frank, and are of staggering clarity. Its worth reading the whole lot.

Amusingly, the most interesting lecture seems to have been the one that students were most reluctant to hear.

“When I handed out the student information sheets, I asked you all to point out the particular topics you were most and least interested in. I tallied these ratings, adding 1 for each “most” rating, and subtracting 1 for each “least” rating, with no change if the item was unrated.

All of the topics received positive scores, ranging from 5 (for physics-based theoretical models of computation) up to 26 (for quantum computing), except for one topic: Thermodynamic constraints on computing received a score of negative 11″

I give it a +10.