3 ms·
The author's sentence is essentially a truism, because fiddling with information _as such_ and in theory doesn't use up any energy. As practically implemented i
by Elrac 8y ago
The author's sentence is essentially a truism, because fiddling with information _as such_ and in theory doesn't use up any energy. As practically implemented in current CPU electronics, though, information needs to be communicated from point A to point B as a change in voltage. To convey that voltage change means having to move some amount of electrical charge into or out of the tiny capacitor that is a transistor's gate, via the non-perfect conductor that is the doped-silicon trace between the two points. Resistance saps part of the energy moving those electrons around and converts it to heat.
- dnautics 8y ago> fiddling with information _as such_ and in theory doesn't use up any energy. that's not true at all. Any time you destroy information (for example an and gate can destroy information) you use energy.
- Elrac 8y agoChances are you know more about this than I do, and I'd be interested to learn more. If you're willing to explain, I wonder how an AND gate destroys information. Certainly the output of a 2-input AND gate carries less information than both inputs together. But unless the gate is destroying the input signals, which it isn't, I don't see how infomation is being destroyed.
- dnautics 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle