Is Reality Digital or Analog? Read the Essays and Cast your Vote
By George Musser
On supporting science journalism
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Last week, the Foundation Questions Institute announced the winners of its third essay contest, which Scientific American co-sponsored. (I helped to decide on the question, judge the essays, and hand out the awards at the World Science Festival.) The essay question was, "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" Is nature, at root, continuous or discretized? You can make a powerful case for either option. Or both options. Or neither. A venerable tradition in essay-writing is to question the question.
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