The universe can be viewed as a giant quantum computer made up of connected quantum gates that flip quantum bits and thereby propagate information and uncertainty, says Seth Lloyd in a new book, Programming The Universe.

The “ultimate laptop” (one with 1 kilogram of mass and 1 liter of volume) would have a maximum of 10⁵¹ operations per second on 10³² bits, but would be roughly 100 times hotter than the center of the Sun. Lloyd also calculates that the visible universe has so far computed about 10¹²² operations on 10⁹² bits.