David Deutsch

Since 2012, he has been working on constructor theory, an attempt at generalizing the quantum theory of computation to cover not just computation but all physical processes. Together with Chiara Marletto, he published a paper in December 2014 entitled Constructor theory of information, that conjectures that information can be expressed solely in terms of which transformations of physical systems are possible and which are impossible.

Deutsch's second book, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World, was published on 31 March 2011. In this book, Deutsch views the Enlightenment of the 18th century as near the beginning of a potentially unending sequence of purposeful knowledge creation. He examines the nature of memes and how and why creativity evolved in humans.

In 2009, Deutsch expounded a new criterion for scientific explanation, which is to formulate invariants: 'State an explanation [publicly, so that it can be dated and verified by others later] that remains invariant [in the face of apparent change, new information, or unexpected conditions]'.

The Fabric of Reality was shortlisted for the Rhone-Poulenc science book award in 1998. Deutsch was awarded the Dirac Prize of the Institute of Physics in 1998, and the Edge of Computation Science Prize in 2005. In 2017, he received the Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). Deutsch is related to Paul Dirac through his doctoral advisor Dennis Sciama, whose doctoral advisor was Dirac. Deutsch was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2008.

In his 1997 book The Fabric of Reality, Deutsch details his "Theory of Everything". It aims not at the reduction of everything to particle physics, but rather mutual support among multiversal, computational, epistemological, and evolutionary principles. His theory of everything is somewhat emergentist rather than reductive. There are four strands to his theory:

His work on quantum algorithms began with a ground-breaking 1985 paper, later expanded in 1992 along with Richard Jozsa to produce the Deutsch–Jozsa algorithm, one of the first examples of a quantum algorithm that is exponentially faster than any possible deterministic classical algorithm. In his 1985 paper, he also suggests the use of entangled states and Bell's theorem for quantum key distribution. In his nomination for election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2008, his contributions were described as:

David Elieser Deutsch FRS (/d ɔɪ tʃ / ; born 18 May 1953) is a British physicist at the University of Oxford. He is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation (CQC) in the Clarendon Laboratory of the University of Oxford. He pioneered the field of quantum computation by formulating a description for a quantum Turing machine, as well as specifying an algorithm designed to run on a quantum computer. He has also proposed the use of entangled states and Bell's theorem for quantum key distribution and is a proponent of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Deutsch was born in Haifa in Israel on 18 May 1953, the son of Oskar and Tikva Deutsch. David attended Geneva House school in Cricklewood (His parents owned and ran the Alma restaurant on Cricklewood broadway NW2.) followed by The William Ellis School in Highgate (then a voluntary aided school in north London) before reading Natural Sciences at Clare College, Cambridge and taking Part III of the Mathematical Tripos. He went on to Wolfson College, Oxford for his doctorate in theoretical physics and wrote his thesis on quantum field theory in curved space-time supervised by Dennis Sciama and Philip Candelas.