Speaker
Prof.
Toby Cubitt
(Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Description
The behaviour of any physical system is governed by its
underlying dynamical equations. Much of physics is
concerned with discovering these dynamical equations and
understanding their consequences. It is perhaps surprising,
therefore, that identifying the underlying dynamical
equation from any amount of experimental data, however
precise, is a computationally hard problem (more precisely,
it is promise NP-complete). This is true both for classical and
for quantum mechanical dynamics.
As a by-product, this result finally lays to rest &mdash& in a complexity-theoretic sense &mdash& the quantum and classical embedding problems, two long-standing open problems in mathematics. (The classical problem, in particular, dates back over 70 years.)
I will explain these results, and discuss some of the implications they might have for physics.
As a by-product, this result finally lays to rest &mdash& in a complexity-theoretic sense &mdash& the quantum and classical embedding problems, two long-standing open problems in mathematics. (The classical problem, in particular, dates back over 70 years.)
I will explain these results, and discuss some of the implications they might have for physics.
Primary author
Prof.
Toby Cubitt
(Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
