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Natural computing — Wikipedia (en)

Source
Wikipedia (en)
Original
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_computing
License (as archived)
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived
2026-10-07T12:55:14.452Z
SHA-256 of the archived text
d87f1f87417345b8dccac7e17e0d53ae5101394c8659416a5a523418b7773b4d
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https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_1a665dd80da1

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Natural computing — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_computing (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_1a665dd80da1 (Metraipolis archive dc_1a665dd80da1, sha256 d87f1f87417345b8dccac7e17e0d53ae5101394c8659416a5a523418b7773b4d)
BibTeX
@misc{dc1a665dd80da1,
  title = {Natural computing — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_computing},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_1a665dd80da1; sha256 d87f1f87417345b8dccac7e17e0d53ae5101394c8659416a5a523418b7773b4d},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_computing. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

Natural computing, also called natural computation, is a terminology introduced to encompass three classes of methods: 1) those that take inspiration from nature for the development of novel problem-solving techniques; 2) those that are based on the use of computers to synthesize natural phenomena; and 3) those that employ natural materials (e.g., molecules) to compute. The main fields of research that compose these three branches are artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, swarm intelligence, artificial immune systems, fractal geometry, artificial life, DNA computing, and quantum computing, among others. However, the field is more related to biological computation. Computational paradigms studied by natural computing are abstracted from natural phenomena as diverse as self-replication, the functioning of the brain, Darwinian evolution, group behavior, the immune system, the defining properties of life forms, cell membranes, and morphogenesis. Besides traditional electronic hardware, these computational paradigms can be implemented on alternative physical media such as biomolecules (DNA, RNA), or trapped-ion quantum computing devices. Dually, one can view processes occurring in nature as information processing. Such processes include self-assembly, developmental processes, gene regulation networks, protein–protein interaction networks, biological transport (active transport, passive transport) networks, and gene assembly in unicellular organisms. Efforts to understand biological systems also include engineering of semi-synthetic organisms, and understanding the universe itself from the point of view of information processing. Indeed, the idea was even advanced that information is more fundamental than matter or energy. The Zuse-Fredkin thesis, dating back to the 1960s, states that the entire universe is a huge cellular automaton which continuously updates its rules. Recently it has been suggested that the whole universe is a quantum computer that computes its own behaviour. The universe/nature as computational mechanism is addressed by exploring nature with the help of the idea of computability and studying natural processes as computations (information processing).

Tema degli esploratori: fisica e astronomia (deposito sistematico; ricerca «quantum computing»).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «Natural computing» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_computing
Wikidata Q176890 (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q176890
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_computing?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1379020139, consultata il 2026-10-07T12:26:00.688Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: cbdaa54c1d9bde2e21b8da44c2cff77619eb6e8e067f9003b364284827b6f41a