Mathematical Digest
Short Summaries of Articles about Mathematics
in the Popular Press
"Computational Creationism", by Brian Hayes. American Scientist,September/October 1999, pages 392-396
Could we be living in a simulated universe, controlled by some giant cosmiccomputer? This is one of the questions explored in this intriguing meditationon the nature of automata, or, as Hayes calls them, "lifelike machines".Drawing on literature as well as science, the article discusses what a computeduniverse might look like and whether there are clues that our universe could besuch a place.
--- Allyn Jackson
