NASA/CXC/SAO/JPL-Caltech/STScI

The online Smithsonian Magazine asks "What is the universe?" and turns to top cosmologists -- including SFI External Professor and Science Board member Seth Lloyd -- for answers. 

The article describes Lloyd’s notion, put forth in a 2013 paper, that space-time could be made up of quantum bits with the universe itself being a giant quantum computer. His quantum computer idea is featured alongside other hypotheses, including those that liken the universe to a hologram, a black hole, and a bubble.

Read the article on Smithsonian.com (September 15, 2014)

Read Lloyd's 2013 paper on the universe as a computer