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2^64 bytes is enough for any human2^64 bytes is enough for any humanPosted Apr 27, 2004 21:01 UTC (Tue) by slamb (guest, #1070)In reply to: 2^64 bytes is enough for any human by chant Parent article: The Grumpy Editor goes 64-bit The point is not whether or not it would be useful to have an accurate model of the universe, but that it is impossible. Clearly you can't do better than (or even as well as) harnessing the largest set of good quantum numbers of every particle in the universe. (Your computer has to be in the universe!) So by examining the number of particles in the universe, you can come up with a number that is larger than the maximum possible storage space of a computer. Take the base-2 log and you've got an inexhaustible address space. I've seen discussions of this number before, but I don't remember the result. But I seem to recall it being less than 2^128; thus, a 128-bit address space is good enough for anyone. Really. There are other arguments based on thermodynamics limiting the complexity of a computer. Google for discussions of thermodynamics and reversible vs. irreversible computers and you'll see what I mean.
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