“It is a principle, namely a law of physics that expresses and explains constraints on other laws rather than on the behaviour of physical objects directly,” they say. “Thus the conservation law, though not an a priori mathematical truth, provides an explanation of aspects of motion that is deeper than laws of motion,” say Deutsch and Marletto.Ĭonstructor theory plays a similar role. But they must all obey the principle that energy is conserved. As energy is converted from chemical to electrical to kinetic to potential energy and so on, its behaviour is governed by all kinds of different laws of physics. This is not a law of physics like quantum mechanics or relativity but a principle that all other laws must follow. The analogy that he draws is with conservation laws such as the conservation of energy. In fact, Deutsch does not think about it as a law of physics but as a principle, or set of principles, that the laws of physics must obey. That’s why constructor theory is deeper than anything that has gone before it. So reasoning about the physical transformations that are possible and impossible leads to the laws of physics.
In other words, the laws of physics do not tell you what is possible and impossible, they are the result of what is possible and impossible. Deutsch’s new fundamental principle is that all laws of physics are expressible entirely in terms of the physical transformations that are possible and those that are impossible.
This leads to a distinction between what happens and what does not happen.Ĭonstructor theory turns this approach on its head. He points out that physicists currently ply their trade by explaining the world in terms of initial conditions and laws of motion. In fact, Deutsch claims that constructor theory forms a kind of bedrock of reality from which all the laws of physics emerge.Ĭonstructor theory is a radically different way of thinking about the universe that Deutsch has been developing for some time. Their new idea is called constructor theory and it is both simpler and deeper than quantum mechanics, or indeed any other laws of physics. These guys have come up with a way to link classical and quantum information using a single theory that acts as a foundation for both. That goal may now be a step closer thanks to the work of David Deutsch and Chiara Marletto at the University of Oxford in the UK. This among other exotic properties is what allows quantum computers to be so powerful and quantum cryptography to be perfectly secure.īut Shannon’s ideas break down in the quantum regime so various research groups have been searching for an alternative formulation that will give quantum information the same theoretical footing that Shannon gave to its classical cousin.
Quantum information can be both a 1 and 0 at the same time.
This is that it only applies to classical information, the kind of 0s and 1s that make up ordinary digital code.īut physicists have become increasingly interested in quantum information and its potential in cryptography and in quantum computing. For that reason, it’s possible to argue that Shannon has had a bigger influence on 21st century technology than anybody in history.īut there’s a problem his theory of information which has stumped physicists and mathematicians in recent years. So mobile phones, digital television and radio, computers and the Internet all depend on Shannon’s theory of information. This theory is the basis for all digital communication. Shannon’s greatest work is the theory of information which he published in 1948 and has since had a profound influence on our world. One of the unsung heroes of 20th century science is the mathematician and electronics engineer, Claude Shannon, who worked at the famous Bell laboratories during the 1940s, 50s and 60s.