Modern digital computers are clock driven.<\/p>\n

That means that there is a clock inside your computer that ticks.\u00c2\u00a0 Tick, tock, tick, tock …<\/p>\n

And at every tick (and tock) the computer DOES something. It executes an instruction (or, to be fair, in modern pipelined processors, an atomized part thereof).<\/p>\n

From a computer program’s point of view it’s without meaning to ask what happens between tick and tock.<\/p>\n

If the clock would miss a beat, there is, in principle (meaning, without help of external circuitry),\u00c2\u00a0no way for the computer program to detect that. It could have been stalled for YEARS, and it wouldn’t know it.<\/p>\n

It’s a consequence of being a ‘digital’ computer, in which everything happens in discrete steps.<\/p>\n

This in contrast with our own world where everything is, as we call it, analog … where everything is smooth and connected. Where there isn’t an ‘atom’ of time, and where even the tiniest piece of ‘length’ can be divided by 2.<\/p>\n

Or is it (time)? And can it (length)?<\/p>\n

What if there IS a smallest unit of time?\u00c2\u00a0And lenght? Units for which the question “what is smaller than that” is like asking “what is north of the North Pole”? If that was the case … dang .. then we WOULD be living in a digital world after all. That would almost sound as if reality as we know it, IS computer generated! As if we were living, and experiencing life, in a holographic environment simulator .. we could be someone’s misguided highschool project.<\/p>\n

Now … guess what!<\/p>\n

Yes … there IS a smallest unit of time. And length.<\/p>\n

Anyone familiar with Quantum Physics\u00c2\u00a0knows them: They’re called Planck-time and Planck length.<\/p>\n

This begs the question: then\u00c2\u00a0 … WHAT is reality?<\/p>\n

This opens a new category for my blog, called ‘Quantum Reality’: I will soon post more on that.<\/p>\n

But for now (leaves holodeck) .. “Computer: save program!”<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Modern digital computers are clock driven. That means that there is a clock inside your computer that ticks.\u00c2\u00a0 Tick, tock, tick, tock … And at every tick (and tock) the computer DOES something. It executes an instruction (or, to be fair, in modern pipelined processors, an atomized part thereof). From a computer program’s point of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quantum-reality","category-random-remarks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}