Quantum Coreworld - People at Gna!: View a Job

Developer wanted for Quantum Coreworld

Submitted By: alexanderwait
Date: Tue 06 Jul 2004 12:43:07 PM UTC
Status: Open

<blockquote>"The Quantum Coreworld, or simply the Coreworld, is an abstract world inhabited by assembly language programs; this language—an extended version of Corewar's Redcode—permits programs to use quantum operations on quantum bits (qubits)"</blockquote>
Does the underlying physics of a living system change its properties in a qualitative way? Could a different physics permit entirely new types of life? <strong>The aim of the Quantum Coreworld project is to engineer, or discover, toy quantum lifeforms.</strong> The success of such organisms—at exploiting available resources before competitors or at cooperating with genetically identical friends—must depend on their use of quantum operations. If this endeavor required delicate control of large quantum systems, there would be no way to get started with current technology. As it happens, however, interesting quantum operations can be simulated on an ordinary digital computer.

The Quantum Coreworld gets its name from the game Corewar and the first Corewar-like artificial world of Rasmussen, Knudsen, Feldberg, and Hindsholm (1990). The Quantum Coreworld ecology is run 24x7 on participating Internet servers at <a href="http://science.fiction.org">http://science.fiction.org</a>. The software, pQmars, used to run the ecology and to develop and debug new lifeforms is available under the GPL license. A book, <a href="http://non.fiction.org/~await/qtaas">"The Coreworld: Quantum Teleportation and Artificial Souls"</a>, is in progress and will be available under the GNU FDL.

License GNU General Public License V2 or later
Development Status: 3 - Alpha

Details (job description, contact ...):

The Quantum Coreworld, or simply the Coreworld, is an abstract world inhabited by assembly language programs. This language--an extended version of Corewar's Redcode--permits programs to use quantum operations on quantum bits (qubits). The goal of the project is to engineer, or discover, toy quantum lifeforms.

As a developer you will learn about an important class of artificial life simulators and the growing field of Quantum Information Processing. No prior knowledge of ALife or QIP is required but programming experience in the component technologies is a big plus. Please contact await @ genetics.med.harvard.edu if interested.

Required Skills:

Skill	Level	Experience
GNU Coding Standards	Base Knowledge	< 6 Months
PHP	Base Knowledge	< 6 Months
C	Good Knowledge	6 Mo - 2 yr
PERL	Good Knowledge	6 Mo - 2 yr