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Physics

There may be a cosmic speed limit on how fast anything can grow

Alan Turing's theories about computation seem to have a startling consequence, placing hard limits on how fast or slow any physical process in the universe can grow

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

1 November 2024

Have we found a new limit on the universe?

kkssr/Shutterstock

A newly proposed cosmic speed limit may constrain how fast anything in the universe can grow. Its existence follows from Alan Turing’s pioneering work on theoretical computer science, which opens the intriguing possibility that the structure of the universe is fundamentally linked to the nature of computation.

Cosmic limits aren’t a new idea. While studying the relationship between space and time, Albert Einstein showed that nothing in the universe can exceed the speed of light, as part of his special theory of relativity. Now, Toby Ord at…

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