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David Deutsch

 
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David Elieser Deutsch FRS (born 1953 in Haifa
Haifa

Haifa is the largest city in North District Israel, and the List of Israeli cities in the country, with a population of over 264,900. Haifa has a mixed population of Jews and Arabs....
, Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
) is a physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
 at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford

The University of Oxford , located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation in the English-speaking world....
. He is a non-stipendiary Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation, Clarendon Laboratory
Clarendon Laboratory

The Clarendon Laboratory, located on South Parks Road with the Science Area in Oxford, England , is part of the Physics Department at Oxford University....
. He pioneered the field of quantum computer
Quantum computer

A quantum computer is a device for computation that makes direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as quantum superposition and quantum entanglement, to perform operations on data....
s by being the first person to formulate a specifically quantum computational algorithm, and is a proponent of the many-worlds interpretation
Many-worlds interpretation

The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics.It is also known as MWI, the relative state formulation, theory of the universal wavefunction, parallel universes, many-universes interpretation or just many worlds....
 of quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a set of principles underlying the most fundamental known description of all physical systems at the microscopic scale . Notable amongst these principles are both a dual wave-like and particle-like behavior of matter and radiation, and prediction of probabilities in situations where classical physics predicts certaintie...
.

is 1997 book The Fabric of Reality, this interpretation, or what he calls the multiverse
Multiverse (science)

The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality. The different universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes....
  hypothesis, is one strand of a four-strand theory of everything.






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Quotations


It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment. (Ch. 6)

Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense...

Since building a universal virtual-reality generator is physically possible, it must actually be built in some universes. (Ch. 6)

Surely it is more interesting to argue about what the truth is, than about what some particular thinker, however great, did or did not think.

The next chapter is likely to provoke many mathematicians. This can't be helped. Mathematics is not what they think it is. (Ch. 10)

The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.






Encyclopedia


David Elieser Deutsch FRS (born 1953 in Haifa
Haifa

Haifa is the largest city in North District Israel, and the List of Israeli cities in the country, with a population of over 264,900. Haifa has a mixed population of Jews and Arabs....
, Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
) is a physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
 at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford

The University of Oxford , located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation in the English-speaking world....
. He is a non-stipendiary Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation, Clarendon Laboratory
Clarendon Laboratory

The Clarendon Laboratory, located on South Parks Road with the Science Area in Oxford, England , is part of the Physics Department at Oxford University....
. He pioneered the field of quantum computer
Quantum computer

A quantum computer is a device for computation that makes direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as quantum superposition and quantum entanglement, to perform operations on data....
s by being the first person to formulate a specifically quantum computational algorithm, and is a proponent of the many-worlds interpretation
Many-worlds interpretation

The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics.It is also known as MWI, the relative state formulation, theory of the universal wavefunction, parallel universes, many-universes interpretation or just many worlds....
 of quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a set of principles underlying the most fundamental known description of all physical systems at the microscopic scale . Notable amongst these principles are both a dual wave-like and particle-like behavior of matter and radiation, and prediction of probabilities in situations where classical physics predicts certaintie...
.

The Fabric of Reality

In his 1997 book The Fabric of Reality, this interpretation, or what he calls the multiverse
Multiverse (science)

The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality. The different universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes....
  hypothesis, is one strand of a four-strand theory of everything. The four strands are:
  1. Hugh Everett's
    Hugh Everett

    Hugh Everett III was an American physicist who first proposed the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, which he called his "relative state" formulation....
     many-worlds interpretation
    Many-worlds interpretation

    The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics.It is also known as MWI, the relative state formulation, theory of the universal wavefunction, parallel universes, many-universes interpretation or just many worlds....
     theory quantum physics
    Quantum mechanics

    Quantum mechanics is a set of principles underlying the most fundamental known description of all physical systems at the microscopic scale . Notable amongst these principles are both a dual wave-like and particle-like behavior of matter and radiation, and prediction of probabilities in situations where classical physics predicts certaintie...
    , "the first and most important of the four strands".
  2. Karl Popper's
    Karl Popper

    Knight Bachelor Karl Raimund Popper Order of the Companions of Honour, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the British Academy was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics....
     epistemology
    Epistemology

    Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. It addresses the questions:...
    , especially its anti-inductivism and its requiring a realist
    Scientific realism

    Scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be....
     (non-instrumental) interpretation of scientific theories, and its emphasis on taking seriously those bold conjectures that resist falsification.
  3. Alan Turing's
    Alan Turing

    Alan Mathison Turing, Order of the British Empire, Fellow of the Royal Society was a British mathematician, logician and Cryptanalysis....
     theory of computation especially as developed in Deutsch's "Turing principle", Turing's universal Turing machine
    Turing machine

    Turing machines are basic abstract symbol-manipulating devices which, despite their simplicity, can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm....
     being replaced by Deutsch's universal quantum computer. ("The theory of computation is now the quantum theory of computation.")
  4. Richard Dawkins's
    Richard Dawkins

    Clinton Richard Dawkins, Royal Society#Fellowship, Royal Society of Literature is a United Kingdom ethology, evolutionary biology and popular science author....
     refinement of Darwinian
    Darwinism

    Darwinism is a term used for various movements or concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or evolution, including ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
     evolutionary theory and the modern evolutionary synthesis
    Modern evolutionary synthesis

    The modern evolutionary synthesis is a union of ideas from several biology specialties which forms a logical account of evolution. This synthesis has been generally accepted by most working biologists....
    , especially the ideas of replicator and meme
    Meme

    A meme is a unit or element of culture ideas, symbols or practices; such units or elements transmit from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena....
     as they integrate with Popperian problem-solving (the epistemological strand).


His theory of everything is (weakly) emergentist
Emergence

In philosophy, systems theory and science, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a Multiplicity of relatively simple interactions....
 rather than reductive
Reductionism

Reductionism can either mean an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual consti...
. It aims not at the reduction of everything to particle physics, but rather mutual support among multiverse, computational, epistemological, and evolutionary principles.

Views


Politically, Deutsch is known to be sympathetic to libertarianism
Libertarianism

Libertarianism is a term used by a political spectrum of Political philosophy which seek to promote individual liberty and seek to minimize or abolish the state....
, and was a founder, along with Sarah Fitz-Claridge of the Taking Children Seriously
Taking Children Seriously

Taking Children Seriously is a parenting movement and educational philosophy whose central idea is that is possible and desirable to raise and educate children without either doing anything to them against their will, or making them do anything against their will....
 movement. He is also an atheist.

Awards


He was awarded the Dirac Prize
Dirac Prize

The Dirac Prize is the name of three prominent awards in the field of theoretical physics, computational chemistry, and mathematics, awarded by different organizations....
 of the Institute of Physics
Institute of Physics

The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics and is the UK and Ireland's main British professional bodies for physicists....
 in 1998, and the Edge of Computation Science Prize in 2005. The Fabric of Reality was shortlisted for the Rhone-Poulenc science book award in 1998.

  • The Fabric of Reality, ISBN 0-14-014690-3


Forthcoming publications


Deutsch is currently working on a book entitled The Beginning of Infinity, which he hopes to finish in 2009.
The book should be printed by Penguin Books Ltd. Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American electronic commerce company in Seattle, Washington. It is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the internet sales revenue of runner up Staples, Inc....
 is reporting it as already printed as of but not yet available to the public.
Such a possibility seems to be a mistake from either the publisher or Amazon.com.


See also


  • Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm
    Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm

    The Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm is a Quantum computer, proposed by David Deutsch and Richard Jozsa in 1992 with improvements by R. Cleve, A. Ekert, C....


External links

  • David Deutsch, extracts from of The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes—and Its Implications (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1997), ISBN 0713990619; with additional comments by Frank J. Tipler
    Frank J. Tipler

    Frank Jennings Tipler III is a mathematical physics and a professor in the departments of mathematics and physics at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana....
    . Also available and
  • of David Deutsch's talk on the study of physics as central to the survival of the human species. Presented July 2005 at the TED Conference in Oxford, UK. Duration: 19:45