We describe a possible physical device that computes a function that cannot be computed by a Turing machine. The device is physical in the sense that it is compatible with General Relativity. We discuss some objections, focusing on those which deny that the device is either a computer or computes a function that is not Turing computable. Finally, we argue that the existence of the device does not refute the Church–Turing thesis, but nevertheless may be a counterexample to Gandy’s thesis.

Inasmuch as physical theories are formalizable, set theory provides a framework for theoretical physics. Four speculations about the relevance of set theoretical modeling for physics are presented: the role of transcendental set theory (i) hr chaos theory, (ii) for paradoxical decompositions of solid three-dimensional objects, (iii) in the theory of effective computability (Church-Turhrg thesis) related to the possible "solution of supertasks," and (iv) for weak solutions. Several approaches to set theory and their advantages and disadvatages for" physical applications are discussed: Cantorian "naive" (i.e., nonaxiomatic) set theory, contructivism, and operationalism, hr the arrthor's ophrion, an attitude of "suspended attention" (a term borrowed from psychoanalysis) seems most promising for progress. Physical and set theoretical entities must be operationalized wherever possible. At the same thne, physicists shouM be open to "bizarre" or "mindboggling" new formalisms, which treed not be operationalizable or testable at the thne of their " creation, but which may successfully lead to novel fields of phenomenology and technology.

Abstract. In the Cellular Automata (CA) literature, discrete lines inside (discrete) space-time diagrams are often idealized as Euclidean lines in order to analyze a dynamics or to design CA for special purposes. In this article, we present a parallel analog model of computation corresponding to this idealization: dimensionless signals are moving on a continuous space in continuous time generating Euclidean lines on (continuous) space-time diagrams. Like CA, this model is parallel, synchronous, uniform in space and time, and uses local updating. The main difference is that space and time are continuous and not discrete (i.e. R instead of Z). In this article, the model is restricted to Q in order to remain inside Turing-computation theory. We prove that our model can carry out any Turing-computation through two-counter automata simulation and provide some undecidability results.

Abstract. Infinite time Turing machines extend the classical Turing machine concept to transfinite ordinal time, thereby providing a natural model of infinitary computability that sheds light on the power and limitations of supertask algorithms. 1 Supertasks What would you compute with an infinitely fast computer? What could you compute? To make sense of these questions, one would want to understand the algorithms that the machines would carry out, computational tasks involving infinitely many steps of computation. Such tasks, known as supertasks, have been studied since antiquity from a variety of viewpoints. Zeno of Elea (ca. 450 B.C.) was perhaps the first to grapple with supertasks, in his famous paradox that it is impossible to go from here

We discuss the question of how to operationally validate whether or not a “hypercomputer ” performs better than the known discrete computational models. 1