Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Unconventional Computing: A Brief Subjective History

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Advances in Unconventional Computing

Part of the book series: Emergence, Complexity and Computation ((ECC,volume 22))

Abstract

In this chapter we present a few stages of the evolution of the emerging area of unconventional computing from a personal perspective.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    At that time at the Santa Fe Institute.

  2. 2.

    The earliest written reference to the term which I have is from an email sent by Seth Lloyd to John Casti Sat on 27 Jul 1996 17:12:41 in which Seth, answering an email from John, lists some researchers in “unconventional and non-Turing models of computation”.

  3. 3.

    The problem was formulated in an equivalent form by Kurt Gödel in a letter to John von Neumann in 1956. Its current mathematical formulation was given by Steven Cook in 1971 using the classes NP and P defined via polynomial time computability, a debatable model of “feasible computation”, see also [18].

  4. 4.

    The period is often quoted as 18 months.

  5. 5.

    One of the top academic conferences on chip design.

  6. 6.

    Named after American mathematician Alonzo Church and his British Ph.D. student Alan Turing.

  7. 7.

    See more at [14].

  8. 8.

    To emphasise both theoretical and practical studies.

  9. 9.

    UCNC page: https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/research/groups/CDMTCS/conferences/uc/uc.html.

  10. 10.

    In alphabetical order.

  11. 11.

    A term coined by N. Allen [7].

  12. 12.

    An early example of quassicality appears in [21] where a method to enhance Grover’s quantum search by incorporating it into classical procedural algorithms is presented. See also [12].

  13. 13.

    From specialised centres, like International Center of Unconventional Computing (http://uncomp.uwe.ac.uk/people.html) in Bristol, UK, to groups scattered all around the globe.

References

  1. Abbott, A.A., Calude, C.S., Conder, J., Svozil, K.: Strong Kochen-Specker theorem and incomputability of quantum randomness. Phys. Rev. A 86, 062109 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Abbott, A.A., Calude, C.S., Svozil, K.: A quantum random oracle. In: Barry Cooper, S., van Leeuwen, J. (eds.) Alan Turing: His Work and Impact, pp. 206–209. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Abbott, A.A., Calude, C.S., Svozil, K.: Value-indefinite observables are almost everywhere. Phys. Rev. A 89, 032109 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Abbott, A.A., Calude, C.S., Svozil, K.: A variant of the Kochen-Specker theorem localising value indefiniteness. Report CDMTCS-478, Centre for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Abbott, A.A., Calude, C.S., Svozil, K.: A non-probabilistic model of relativised predictability in physics. Information 6, 773–789 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Adleman, L.M.: Molecular computation of solutions to combinatorial problems. Science 226, 121–1024 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Allen, N.: Personal communication to C.S. Calude, 7 Nov 2014

    Google Scholar 

  8. Calude, C.S. (ed.): The Human Face of Computing. Imperial College Press, London (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Calude, C.S., Casti, J.L.: Parallel thinking. Nature, pp. 549–551, 9 April 1998

    Google Scholar 

  10. Calude, C.S., Casti, J., Dinneen, M.J. (eds.): Unconventional Models of Computation. Springer, Singapore (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Calude, C.S., Casti, J.L., Gibbons, P.B., Lipponen, M.: Unconventional models of computation: a conventional report. Complexity 3(4), 8–11 (1998)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  12. Calude, C.S., Calude, E., Dinneen, M.J.: Adiabatic quantum computing challenges. ACM SIGACT News 46(1), 40–61 (2015)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. Cerf, V.G.: Unconventional computing. Commun. ACM 57(10), 7–7 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. “Computing” vs. “computation” (2015). http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/79262/computing-vs-computation. Accessed 3 Mar 2015

  15. D-Wave. D-Wave overview: A brief introduction to D-Wave and quantum computing (2013). http://www.dwavesys.com/sites/default/files/D-Wave-brochure-102013F-CA.pdf

  16. Davis, M.: The myth of hypercomputation. In: Teuscher, C. (ed.) Alan Turing: Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker, pp. 195–212. Springer, Berlin (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Davis, M.: Why there is no such discipline as hypercomputation. Appl. Math. Comput. 178, 4–7 (2006)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. Davis, M.: Interview with Martin Davis. Not. Am. Math. Soc. 55, 560–571 (2008)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  19. Jack Copeland, B.: The Church-Turing thesis. In: Zalta, E.N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2008). Fall 2008 edition

    Google Scholar 

  20. Kochen, S.B., Specker, E.: The problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics. J. Math. Mech. 17, 59–87 (1990). Reprinted in E. Brikhäuser Verlag, Basel, Specker. Selecta (1967)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Lanzagorta, M., Uhlmann, J.K.: Hybrid quantum-classical computing with applications to computer graphics. In: ACM SIGGRAPH 2005 Courses, SIGGRAPH ’05. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Moore, G.E.: Cramming more components onto integrated circuits. Electronics pp. 114–117 (1965), 19 April 1965. Reprinted in: Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 86, no. 1, pp. 82–85 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Shor, P.W.: Algorithms for quantum computation: discrete logarithms and factoring. In: Proceedings of the 35th Annual Symposium of on Foundations of Computer Science, Santa Fe, NM, Nov. 20–22, 1994. IEEE Computer Society Press (1994). arXiv:quant-ph/9508027

  24. Wikipedia. Computation (2015). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computation. Accessed 27 Feb 2015

  25. Wikipedia. Computation (2015). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing. Accessed 27 Feb 2015

  26. Wikipedia. Hypercomputation (2015). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercomputation. Accessed 27 Feb 2015

Download references

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Andy Adamatzky, Elena Calude, John Casti, Michael Dinneen, Bob Doran, Grzegorz Rozenberg, Karl Svozil and Garry Tee for conversations on the topic of the paper and personal recollections.

This work was supported in part by Marie Curie FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IRSES Grant RANPHYS.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Cristian S. Calude

Authors
  1. Cristian S. Calude
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cristian S. Calude .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Unconventional Computing Centre, University of the West of England Unconventional Computing Centre, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Andrew Adamatzky

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Calude, C.S. (2017). Unconventional Computing: A Brief Subjective History. In: Adamatzky, A. (eds) Advances in Unconventional Computing. Emergence, Complexity and Computation, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33924-5_31

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33924-5_31

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-33923-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-33924-5

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation