Programming the Universe

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Programming the Universe is a popular science book written by Seth Lloyd, and first published in 2006. Giving a tour of how information has evolved from the earliest days of Man to how it is presented now, Lloyd provides an extension of the older laymans science book as he provides information that has been discovered recently via experiments. It gives an overview of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics, with the laymans surprise as he deals with the essential aspects of physics to explain his point of view.

The main idea of the book is that everything around us, from the macroscopic to the microscopic are composed of bits of information, and the objects or 'its' arise from these bits, similar to what takes place in a computer. As the laws of physics dictate the Universe, Lloyds contention is that by understanding the laws of physics that we can understand the Universe itself. The Universe in his interpretation is a quantum computer that computes following the laws of physics to transform the bits that are defined by the atoms in terms of their properties (for example, quantum spin and alignment) as it is these bits that eventually give rise to 'its' like an object made of atoms. The Universe is thus in other words processing information; by understanding this process would give a better understanding of why the Universe is complex. One of the book's main ideas is that information and energy are equivalent, reading the book would give the reader a better idea of how and why this is so. The book seems to contain a philosophy of what many physicists believe the Universe to be, it underlies many of the ideas like when the existence of the 'ghost in the machine' is questioned, or when intelligent design is brushed aside as misguided.

The book's goal according to Lloyd is to "reveal the fundamental role that information plays in the universe ... By understanding how the universe computes, we can understand why it is complex."