Re:Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?
by dkarapetyan on Friday April 11, 2014 @02:56PM
(#7574736)
Infinitely infinitely many is still infinitely many. N x N has the same cardinality as N. Now if you meant N ^ N then that's actually different. "x" means set product and "^" means function space.
Re:Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?
by Sniffnoy on Friday April 11, 2014 @03:41PM
(#7575107)
This isn't about cardinality, though, this is about number of steps, which is more properly measured with ordinal numbers. I'm not familiar with the theory of infinite-time Turing machines, but it's at least plausible that there are things you can do with omega^2 steps (or larger countable ordinals) that you couldn't do with only omega steps.
Re:Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?
by sp332 on Friday April 11, 2014 @03:56PM
(#7575201)
omega == omega^2. They are the same quantity. For every element of omega^2, there is a corresponding unique element of omega.
Re:Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?
by adamtj on Friday April 11, 2014 @04:46PM
(#7575528)
Actually, no. I just recently read about this.
1 + omega == omega < omega + 1 < omega^2
Re:Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?
by sp332 on Friday April 11, 2014 @04:59PM
(#7575600)
Weird! Thanks for the link!
Actually you are both right -- omega and omega + 1 (or omega^2) have the same 'number' of elements (there is a one to one correspondence) but the correspondence will not be (can not be) order-preserving. Ordinals are a natural extension of the natural numbers. If you take the natural numbers and add a new element that's bigger than all of them then you get a new structure (called omega + 1) which has the same size as the normal natural numbers, but has one new element which is order-distinguishable from all our normal numbers. Some ordinals, which correspond to a jump in 'size' (like 2^omega) are special and called cardinal numbers.
Re:Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?
by trhway on Friday April 11, 2014 @03:40PM
(#7575099)
>N x N has the same cardinality as N
until the N is aleph-one if i remember correctly, or do you think it is not?
Re:Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?
by Sniffnoy on Friday April 11, 2014 @03:44PM
(#7575133)
By N, dkarapetyan presumably means the set of natural numbers, or aleph_0. So it isn't aleph_1. That said, it is also true that aleph_1 x aleph_1 = aleph_1. More generally, any aleph_alpha x aleph_alpha = aleph_alpha, for any ordinal alpha; and if we assume the axiom of choice, then any infinite cardinal A can be written as some aleph_alpha, and hence satisfies A x A = A.
However, ultimately none of this is relevant; number of steps is properly measured with ordinals, not cardinals.
The next target isn't infinitely many. The target is infinitely infinitely many.
Like something along the lines of forking infinite number of parallel Universes - that is pretty much "many-verse" interpretation of the quantum superposition(and thus computing) - enhanced with forking of infinitely many time dimensions inside each of the said Universes...