NP-complete Problems and Physical Reality (2005)
arxiv.org
arxiv.org
The quote about god playing dice doesn't imply god exists -- it's actually about the laws of nature (how the universe operates). God's playing dice is just the phrasing it uses to make it more understandable.
"The key point is that seeing a hidden variable’s history would effectively let us simulate non- collapsing measurements."
This fact allows one to dismiss all hidden-variables theories (including Bohm's of course) as having no metaphysical relevance. Hidden variables are the invisible pink unicorn of physics. If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. Deal with it.
Other Aaronson classics include "Who can name the bigger number?" [1], "Shor, I'll do it" (his layman's explanation of Shor's algorithm for finding hidden abelian subgroups) [2], "Is Quantum Mechanics An Island In Theoryspace?" [3], and his blog turned class turned book "Quantum Computing Since Democritus" [4]. But really there's a ton of gold. He has a really neat explanation of the AKS primality testing algorithm [5] and modeled an imaginary easier-to-build (?) less-powerful-but-probably-more-powerful-than-classic-computers computing machine based on the quantum effects of light [6].
In general his blog tends to accumulate a lot of drama and controversy in its comments (because Prof. Aaronson is very opinionated), which he handles very hilariously.
It's worth following him over at Shtetl-Optimized [7]. MIT was smart to have given him tenure.
[1] http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html
[2] http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=208
[3] http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/island.pdf
[4] http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/
[5] http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/prime.pdf
It very likely is interesting to see to what degree other physical processes can approximately compute otherwise hard problems. It's just not fair to pick Aaronson to do it; he himself would be the first to admit that it isn't his area and that you'd want someone like Champagne to do it.
In summary, yeah definitely his work is on a very theoretical and abstract level. He proudly admits this. Nobody would be more excited about others performing experiments than he would be.
Anyway, for those curious about the medium article[2] (and for posterity's sake), see [3].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8939750
[2] It's from their "physics arxiv blog", by the way --so at the very least someone, somewhere in the discipline found it entertaining enough despite its comic flaws!
[3] https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-astounding-lin...