




Slideshow:
Computational forms and functions stand alone or lock in with other forms and functions, each contributing their unique pattern to the whole. Molecules, molecular systems, and materials can be simulated and designed on computers, allowing visionary scientists to imagine and create environments from atoms on up. Control theory studies how feedback loops between sensors and actuators can be used to make robust responsive systems, from a car’s cruise control to robots in a factory, or biochemical circuits within a cell. The principle of least action states that, of all the possible paths a particle, such as a photon, could take, it will take the one with minimal integrated energy. Analogous optimization principles are used in software that finds the best route from place A to place B, finds the best price for a concert ticket, or finds the most likely interpretation of data. In programming, instantiation is the creation of a real instance or particular realization of an abstraction or template such as a class of objects or a computer process. In mathematics, objects (such as sets or functions) can be defined that are impossible to compute. Yet these impossible objects can provide a force of insight that clarifies what is possible and blazes the path toward manifesting it. Reality beyond our perception is an entangled logarithmic output of a computational universe.
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