We know, and can formalize, what the upper limits of computing are. We have no idea what the upper limits of physics are. Even if we assume we know all the things there are to know about physics, that doesn’t mean clever engineering can’t come up with a way of doing it.
Even if you only move at a fraction of the speed of light, you could reach all the stars in a galaxy in a few million years. In the 1960s engineers came up with a way of travelling 1-10% of the speed of light using nuclear bombs. There was another proposal IIRC that used a giant collector in the front to grab hydrogen molecules, and could somehow reach 70% of the speed of light.
If you have nanotech, you can shoot millions of very tiny, pin sized or smaller, spacecraft at significant speeds. Even if only a tiny fraction reach their destination, the nanotech on board could self replicate, and create trillions more.
To correct one thing here, the Bussard ramjet has drag effects. It can only get you to about 0.2c, making it pretty pointless to bother if you have that kind of command over fusion power.
We know, and can formalize, what the upper limits of computing are. We have no idea what the upper limits of physics are. Even if we assume we know all the things there are to know about physics, that doesn’t mean clever engineering can’t come up with a way of doing it.
Even if you only move at a fraction of the speed of light, you could reach all the stars in a galaxy in a few million years. In the 1960s engineers came up with a way of travelling 1-10% of the speed of light using nuclear bombs. There was another proposal IIRC that used a giant collector in the front to grab hydrogen molecules, and could somehow reach 70% of the speed of light.
If you have nanotech, you can shoot millions of very tiny, pin sized or smaller, spacecraft at significant speeds. Even if only a tiny fraction reach their destination, the nanotech on board could self replicate, and create trillions more.
To correct one thing here, the Bussard ramjet has drag effects. It can only get you to about 0.2c, making it pretty pointless to bother if you have that kind of command over fusion power.