Can NP-complete problems be solved efficiently in the physical universe? I survey proposals including soap bubbles, protein folding, quantum computing, quantum advice, quantum adiabatic algorithms, quantum-mechanical nonlinearities, hidden variables, relativistic time dilation, analog computing, Malament-Hogarth spacetimes, quantum gravity, closed timelike curves, and "anthropic computing." The section on soap bubbles even includes some "experimental" results. While I do not believe that any of the proposals will let us solve NP-complete problems efficiently, I argue that by studying them, we can learn something not only about computation but also about physics.

Guest Column: NP-complete problems and physical reality

Can NP-complete problems be solved efficiently in the physical universe? I survey proposals including soap bubbles, protein folding, quantum computing, quantum advice, quantum adiabatic algorithms, quantum-mechanical nonlinearities, hidden variables, relativistic time dilation, analog computing, Malament-Hogarth spacetimes, quantum gravity, closed timelike curves, and “anthropic computing.” The section on soap bubbles even includes some “experimental” results. While I do not believe that any of the proposals will let us solve NP-complete problems efficiently, I argue that by studying them, we can learn something not only about computation but also about physics.

https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/npcomplete.pdf

NP-complete Problems and Physical Reality

Are there 'biologically computing agents' capable to compute Turing uncomputable functions? It is perhaps tempting to dismiss this question with a negative answer. Quite the opposite, for the first time in the literature on molecular computing we contend that the answer is not theoretically negative. Our results will be formulated in the language of membrane computing (P systems). Some mathematical results presented here are interesting in themselves. In contrast with most speed-up methods which are based on non-determinism, our results rest upon some universality results proved for deterministic P systems. These results will be used for building "accelerated P systems". In contrast with the case of Turing machines, acceleration is a part of the hardware (not a quality of the environment) and it is realised either by decreasing the size of "reactors" or by speeding-up the communication channels. Consequently, two acceleration postulates of biological inspiration are introduced; each of them poses specific questions to biology. Finally, in a more speculative part of the paper, we will deal with Turing non-computability activity of the brain and possible forms of (extraterrestrial) intelligence.

https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~cristian/bio2355.pdf

Bio-steps beyond Turing.

Memcomputing is a novel non-Turing paradigm of computation that uses interacting memory cells (memprocessors for short) to store and process information on the same physical platform. It was recently proven mathematically that memcomputing machines have the same computational power of nondeterministic Turing machines. Therefore, they can solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time and, using the appropriate architecture, with resources that only grow polynomially with the input size. The reason for this computational power stems from properties inspired by the brain and shared by any universal memcomputing machine, in particular intrinsic parallelism and information overhead, namely, the capability of compressing information in the collective state of the memprocessor network. We show an experimental demonstration of an actual memcomputing architecture that solves the NP-complete version of the subset sum problem in only one step and is composed of a number of memprocessors that scales linearly with the size of the problem. We have fabricated this architecture using standard microelectronic technology so that it can be easily realized in any laboratory setting. Although the particular machine presented here is eventually limited by noise-and will thus require error-correcting codes to scale to an arbitrary number of memprocessors-it represents the first proof of concept of a machine capable of working with the collective state of interacting memory cells, unlike the present-day single-state machines built using the von Neumann architecture.

/pdf/memcomputing-np-complete-problems-in-polynomial-time-using-5elya9cnq3.pdf

Memcomputing NP-complete problems in polynomial time using polynomial resources and collective states.

Preface Basic of Quantum Computation Quantum Computers Based on Exactly Solvable Models & Geometric Phases Quantum Processor Based on the Three-Level Quantum System Methods of Geometric Control Theory for Quantum Computations Analytic Methods in Quantum Computation References Index.

/pdf/geometry-of-quantum-computation-pgnx38rtha.pdf

Geometry of quantum computation

We explore in the framework of Quantum Computation the notion of {\em Computability}, which holds a central position in Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science. A quantum algorithm for Hilbert's tenth problem, which is equivalent to the Turing halting problem and is known to be mathematically noncomputable, is proposed where quantum continuous variables and quantum adiabatic evolution are employed. If this algorithm could be physically implemented, as much as it is valid in principle--that is, if certain hamiltonian and its ground state can be physically constructed according to the proposal--quantum computability would surpass classical computability as delimited by the Church-Turing thesis. It is thus argued that computability, and with it the limits of Mathematics, ought to be determined not solely by Mathematics itself but also by Physical Principles.

Quantum Algorithm for Hilbert's Tenth Problem

We explore in the framework of Quantum Computation the notion of Computability, which holds a central position in Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science. A quantum algorithm for Hilbert's tenth problem, which is equivalent to the Turing halting problem and is known to be mathematically noncomputable, is proposed where quantum continuous variables and quantum adiabatic evolution are employed. If this algorithm could be physically implemented, as much as it is valid in principle—that is, if certain Hamiltonian and its ground state can be physically constructed according to the proposal—quantum computability would surpass classical computability as delimited by the Church—Turing thesis. It is thus argued that computability, and with it the limits of Mathematics, ought to be determined not solely by Mathematics itself but also by Physical Principles.

/pdf/quantum-algorithm-for-hilbert-s-tenth-problem-fx4clgndcr.pdf

Tien Dung Kieu

Papers

Quantum Algorithm for Hilbert's Tenth Problem

Quantum algorithm for Hilbert's tenth problem