5 ms·

It's weird that Mr. Lessig refers to cryptography as "physics" instead of mathematics around 28:15 :-).

• venantius 12y ago
  He does it a couple times, I think. I noticed that as well.
• jMyles 12y ago
  I've been wrestling in my head about which parts are physics and which parts are mathematics. Especially from an epistemological perspective: Can we know, for example, that encryption becomes easier / cheaper more quickly than brute-force decryption because, in some sense, the physics of the universe have it that way?
  • presumeaway 12y ago
    Which is philosophy.
    • jMyles 12y ago
      Sure, but if it's true that this is the nature of the mechanics of the universe, that's physics, right?
      • cm127 12y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_computation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_computation
• recondite 12y ago
  It's all the same ;) http://xkcd.com/435/ http://xkcd.com/435/
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• metaphorm 12y ago
  that line struck me as well. its kind of a philosophical statement, actually. mathematics is a formal logical system but nothing in computing is pure mathematics, even if the theory of computing and the theorems of cryptography are expressed in mathematics. ultimately a machine is actually DOING the cryptographic operations and that solidly brings it into the realm of physics.
• kbart 12y ago
  When you add hardware to cryptography, it becomes physics. Just think about various side-channel attacks.
• ngcazz 12y ago
  Mathematical laws underpinning any system make its "physics".