[extropy-chat] Singularity heat waste

[scerir]

[Chris, on George's blog, asked]
> "Does anyone know if any work has been done on
> the subject of how much waste heat would be
> generated by a singularity event?"

Not so much, using CTC [1].
Few years ago, it was pointed out [Mitchison, Jozsa,
Proc.R.Soc.Lond., A 457, 1175-1193, (2001)] that a 
properly programmed quantum computer could be (itself) 
prepared in a superposition state, so that it would 
either run the program or not, depending on whether 
a photon activates its on/off switch or not. From the 
'quantum interrogation' setup and procedures
http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/02/27/quantum-interrogation/
http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/02/28/paul-kwiat-on-quantum-computation/ 
http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/people/Kwiat/Interaction-Free-Measurements.htm
we know there is a possibility that we can obtain 
the right answer from the computer even without 
running it.
You can read about the first implementation [Hosten, Rakher, 
Barreiro, Peters, Kwiat, Nature, 439, 949-952, (2006)] here
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7079/pdf/nature04523.pdf
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7079/full/nature04523.html
[the pdf file is much better, I hope the link still works]



[1] Ok, counterfacual computation.