Bird's-eye view on Noise-Based Logic

TL;DR

This paper explores noise-based logic, a deterministic logic scheme inspired by neural spikes, addressing its computational capabilities, relation to quantum computing, and the efficacy of classical noise-based random number generators.

Contribution

It provides a conceptual analysis of noise-based logic, questions its computational power, compares classical and quantum randomness, and discusses hardware implications.

Findings

Noise-based logic can be practically deterministic.

Classical thermal noise generators are as effective as quantum ones.

Questions about the Turing completeness and quantum advantages are addressed.

Abstract

Noise-based logic is a practically deterministic logic scheme inspired by the randomness of neural spikes and uses a system of uncorrelated stochastic processes and their superposition to represent the logic state. We briefly discuss various questions such as (i) What does practical determinism mean? (ii) Is noise-based logic a Turing machine? (iii) Is there hope to beat (the dreams of) quantum computation by a classical physical noise-based processor, and what are the minimum hardware requirements for that? Finally, (iv) we address the problem of random number generators and show that the common belief that quantum number generators are superior to classical (thermal) noise-based generators is nothing but a myth.