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David Deutsch Biography

David Elieser Deutsch FRS (/dɔɪtʃ/; born 18 May 1953) is an Israeli-born British physicist at the University of Oxford. He is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation (CQC) in the Clarendon Laboratory of the University of Oxford. He pioneered the field of quantum computation by formulating a description for a quantum Turing machine, as well as specifying an algorithm designed to run on a quantum computer. He is a proponent of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

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David Deutsch Quotes

Where we have good, testable explanations, they then have to be tested, and we drop the ones that fail the tests.

Drop, Explanation, Failing, Ones, Tested, Tests

If you reject the infinite, you are stuck with the finite, and the finite is parochial. . . the best explanation of anything eventually involves universality, and therefore infinity. The reach of explanations cannot be limited by fiat.

Eventually, Infinite, Infinity, Stuck

The most important application of quantum computing in the future is likely to be a computer simulation of quantum systems, because that's an application where we know for sure that quantum systems in general cannot be efficiently simulated on a classical computer.

Computer, Computing, Important, Quantum, Systems

Like every other destruction of optimism, whether in a whole civilisation or in a single individual, these must have been unspeakable catastrophes for those who had dared to expect progress. But we should feel more than sympathy for those people. We should take it personally. For if any of those earlier experiments in optimism had succeeded, our species would be exploring the stars by now, and you and I would be immortal.

Expect, Experiments, Optimism, People, Stars, Unspeakable

Discovering a new explanation is inherently an act of creativity.

Creativity, Discovering, Explanation, Inherently

It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment.

Build, Environment, Possible, Reality, Virtual Reality

Humans may or may not have cosmic significance, and if they do, it will be by hitching a ride on the objective centrality of knowledge in the cosmic scheme of things.

Centrality, Cosmic, Knowledge, May, Objective, Schemes

I chop and change between what is called 'work' and what is called 'recreation. ' There are no discontinuities in my day. I only play tennis with people I find interesting.

Change, Chop, Day, Interesting, People, Play

Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense.

Common, Common Sense, Make, Theories, Theory, Truer

The theory that the biosphere was created without evolution, a few thousand years ago, is ruled out by overwhelming scientific evidence. To claim that there are 'alternative (always better) Biblical explanations of the same data', which make creationism a reasonable alternative to our best theories of biology and physics, is appalling intellectual dishonesty.

Biblical, Data, Ruled, Theory, Years

The whole [scientific] process resembles biological evolution. A problem is like an ecological niche, and a theory is like a gene or a species which is being tested for viability in that niche.

Evolution, Like, Niche, Problem, Tested

To me quantum computation is a new and deeper and better way to understand the laws of physics, and hence understanding physical reality as a whole.

Deeper, Law, Laws, Reality, Understanding

Every problem that is interesting is also soluble.

Interesting, Problem, Soluble

I myself believe that there will one day be time travel because when we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics we usually eventually find a technological way of doing it.

Believe, Eventually, Forbidden, Law, Travel

Quantum computation is. . . a distinctively new way of harnessing nature. . . It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes.

Collaboration, Computation, Parallel, Tasks, Technology, Universes

If you can’t program it, you haven’t understood it.

Havens, Havent, Program, Understood

Despite the unrivaled empirical success of quantum theory, the very suggestion that it may be literally true as a description of nature is still greeted with cynicism, incomprehension, and even anger.

Cynicism, Incomprehension, Literally, May, Success, Suggestions

No precautions, and no precautionary principle, can avoid problems that we do not yet foresee. We need a stance of problem-fixing, not just problem-avoidance.

Avoid, Inspiration, Motivation, Precautionary, Principle, Principles

Feeling insignificant because the universe is large has exactly the same logic as feeling inadequate for not being a cow.

Cow, Cows, Feelings, Logic, Universe

Base metals can be transmuted into gold by stars, and by intelligent beings who understand the processes that power stars, but by nothing else in the universe.

Gold, Intelligent, Nothing, Stars, Transmuted

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