[FOM] Potgieter on hypercomputation

[Vladimir Sazonov]

Apostolos Syropoulos wrote:
> Well, nobody really knows whether there are limits to our universe. This
> means that even 2^1000 may not even close to what one may call infinity.
> In addition, let me just note that recently two researchers in
> astrophysics found evidence that space and time are not really discrete
> but rather continuous. If these results will be verified, then I believe
> they will have a significant impact on our understanding of our cosmos and
> consequently on our views of what can and cannot be computed.

Even if anything was changed in physics since that time when I read
in a Feynman book that (a number even much less than) 2^1000 is bigger
than the number of electrons in the whole Universe,  I think that
the number of electrons in our galaxy is still considered as smaller
than this number. Anyway, this is more than enough to consider
that this is infinity for practical (say, contemporary digital)
computations, and this is the only physical "fact" of such kind
that I need to rely on when I say that 2^1000 is infinity.


Vladimir Sazonov