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From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker)
Subject: Re: Switching (was: Will Java VM kill Lisp?  How to fight it.)
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In article <334BFC43.327D@BellAtlantic.net>, dutky@BellAtlantic.net wrote:
> Robert Harley wrote:
> > hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) writes:
> > > [...]
> > > The current assumption is that fast necessarily means 'hot' (in 
> > > temperature and dissipation), although I can find nothing in my
> > > physics books that even remotely implies this connection.
> 
> As Rob says, "take a closer look at your physics books."
> Computation is currently achieved by moving physical objects
> from one place to another as a means of symbolizing information.
> Moving these symbols around takes WORK since the symbols are
> physical things (beads, cams, relay contacts, electrons) and
> that work generates heat due to friction (see the first and
> second laws of thermodynamics).

Of course this is complete hogwash.  You won't find anything in any of
your physics books that says that moving 'symbols' of 'information' requires
WORK.  In fact, one of the major failures of physics in the 20th century
is its complete inability to integrate any theory of 'information' with
physics at all.  Yes, I know that some of the best and brightest are working
on this exact problem (Feynmann, Wheeler, Hawking, etc.), but they haven't
done it yet.

BTW, this ignorance holds for both classical and quantum physics.  In some
sense, the classical situation is hopeless, because it seems to imply that
it is possible to store and detect an infinite amount of information in a
finite amount of space-time, energy-momentum, or whatever.  Since few people
actually believe this, it actually is another argument for quanta.
