I would suggest, merely as a metaphor here, but also as the basis for a scientific program to investigate the computational capacity of the universe, that this is also a reasonable explanation for why the universe is complex.

If you take a more Darwinian point of view the dynamics of the universe are such that as the universe evolved in time, complex systems arose out of the natural dynamics of the universe.

We have a picture for how complexity arises, because if the universe is computationally capable, maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that things are so entirely out of control.

In this metaphor we actually have a picture of the computational universe, a metaphor which I hope to make scientifically precise as part of a research program.

Just after graduation in 1966, like many of my contemporaries, I applied for research training at the National Institutes of Health. Perhaps because his wife was a poet, Ira Pastan agreed to take me into his laboratory, despite my lack of scientific credentials.

My hope is that in the future, women stop referring to themselves as 'the only woman' in their physics lab or 'only one of two' in their computer science jobs.

Doctor Who' is where my love of science fiction and fantasy started. I was introduced to it when I was 8, and I'm still an avid viewer.

I went to college for political science and got a bartending job.