Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.consciousness,comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.meta
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!yeshua.marcam.com!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!olivea!news.hal.COM!decwrl!netcomsv!netcom.com!gyro
From: gyro@netcom.com (Scott L. Burson)
Subject: Re: Roger Penrose's New Book
Message-ID: <gyroCy8xzw.qB@netcom.com>
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
References: <38h8cm$hua@netaxs.com> <38iuc7INN1r8v@sat.ipp-garching.mpg.de> <38j1b7$6pl@netaxs.com>
Distribution: inet
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 20:52:44 GMT
Lines: 22
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.physics:97564 comp.ai.philosophy:21348 sci.philosophy.meta:14351

In article <38j1b7$6pl@netaxs.com> sparky@netaxs.com (Tim Sheridan) writes:
>Christian Cieslar (cieslar@nmrvex.biochem.mpg.de) wrote:
>: Tim Sheridan (sparky@netaxs.com) wrote:
>: : Has anyone defigned the correct relationship between information and energy?
>: <deleted>
>: : probibility of the event and the units are in Bits.  Great but how much 
>: : energy is in a bit?  Can they be created or destroyed?
>: I also would like to know what serious science says to this question.
>
>Well that is a start!  Now it seems like information would be a property 
>of matter just as mass or energy..  But is there a minimum energy needed 
>to express 1 Bit?  Interestingly the information content of the wave does 
>not change with relitive motion.

Someone told me several years ago that Richard Feynman had proved (somewhat to
his own surprise, as I recall) that there is no minimum amount of energy
required for computation.  Alas, I don't know anything about the form of the
proof.  Ed Fredkin has done some work in this area also -- he pointed out, for
instance, that energy is not required for storing information, but only for
erasing it.  (An interesting observation, I think.)

-- Scott
