4 ms·

The principle the article is implicitly talking about is Landauer's principle [1]. It states that if information is lost in a system, it must be as heat dissip

by sgdpk 6y ago

The principle the article is implicitly talking about is Landauer's principle [1]. It states that if information is lost in a system, it must be as heat dissipation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

peter_d_sherman 6y ago
This is interesting! The idea that in Physics, Heat = Information, that is, an identity or potential identity. Now, i'm currently 50/50 on that idea, that is, that Heat = Information (and vice versa). I'd love to see something which conclusively proves this, with say, the rigor of a mathematical or logical proof. Also, if Heat = Information, then we need some way of accounting for what happens when a system cools, that is, how does the information (again, without being lost) propagate into the environment, such that when an object cools, no information is lost? As I said, I'm 50/50 on this idea... I'd like to see a really good proof. The best proof would be short, logical, and highly consistent... Prove to me that no information is lost, or are we just accepting that because heat physically difuses and no heat is lost, that no information is as well? That would be both a simple and logical explanation, but then we'd have to search the entire universe for no physical anomaly (to be sure that we're absolutely correct), that is, there's no exceptional case where heat in a system was lost or gained without exchange with an external system... which is quite the search, let me tell you! See, if we think that heat is never lost in the universe, we got that idea from somewhere... it may have been given to us as one of the first axioms given to us in an elementary Physics class... but where does it come from that brought it there, and why do we never question it? Help me to understand...
- sukilot 6y ago
  You'll need to read advanced thermodynamic textbooks.
- peter_d_sherman 6y ago
  Addendum: OK, here's my problem... Soil temperature. That is, when you dig more than a few feet into the soil, more than a few feet into the ground -- what you'll find is consistent ground temperature, no matter what part of the world you're in, no matter how hot or how cold the above climate is. See, if there is conservation of heat, and the center of our planet is as hot as the sun -- then why doesn't/hasn't this heat diffused out across the entire interior of the planet? If you heat soil that's more than a few feet down up, it's going to cool, and if you cool it, it's going to heat back up. Sure, you could argue that this heat is moved and diffused into the adjacent ground/soil, but are we really sure that there isn't some other kind of phenomena going on there? Objects get very cool in outer space... near zero, yet they get hot, extremely hot, when the suns rays, unshielded by the earth's atmosphere, touch them. How do objects cool down in space, if by definition, space is a vacuum, and vacuum = thermal insulation? In other words, I have a Thermos(tm), with a vaccuum chamber inside of it on one hand, and the vaccuum of outer space on the other. The Thermos keeps my cold beverages cold, and my hot beverages hot. It does this by preventing thermal dissipation. It does this by putting a vacuum between the interior and exterior containers. In outer space, on the other hand, if sunlight is blocked for whatever reason, temperatures of objects get very, very cold. Where does the heat (aka, information) go, if space is a vacuum? You see, the paradoxes with respect to vacuums, and thus heat transfer in vacuums, and thus Heat = Information abound... Perhaps they would be solved if heat could travel through the vacuum (radiant energy?) in an effect much like Quantum Tunneling -- just the outer space / heat -- version of that? I'm not an expert in any of these areas... Can anyone help me out?
  - dr_zoidberg 6y ago
    Heat is radiated as infrared light in a vacuum, and it's an extremely slow process compared to convection and conduction. Read about black body radiation[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation
    - peter_d_sherman 6y ago
      Black body radiation is interesting and does make sense, but then it brings up another question, which is: "If there is black body radiation everywhere in space -- then why doesn't space itself heat up until it's eventually the temperature of the Sun?" Maybe objects in space, such as planets, act as "heat drains" for the rest of space... that is, all of the heat (information) in space eventually winds up at a physical planet, or other object in space... If this is true, then this leads to an interesting identity, which is basically that every element, that is, everything on the periodic table from hydrogen on downward, is not just an element, not just matter, but also has an identity in terms of heat/information... In other words, every single element (and by extension substance) is what it is, but could also be thought about simultaneously as heat, and simultaneously as information. Which brings up endothermic/exothermic chemical reactions. That is, chemical reactions between two or more elements (for example, hydrogen and oxygen combining to produce water) where heat is produced (combining them via fire), or where heat is consumed (note that the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis, as far as I know, is neither endothermic or exothermic -- so where did the information go? Into the electricity? It's possible, we can't rule out that possibility...) And then the next question... Do chemical elements combined as a compound (such as water) then store the information as heat from the reaction somehow, or does it somehow dissipate, does that information somehow come back when they are separated? I don't know the answer to any of these questions; I'm just thinking aloud, but my intutive mind says that there may be something to discover there...
      - goldenkey 6y ago
        Yeah information <=> energy. Change of state is equivalent mathematically to movement in a "dimension." Action in physics is energy times time. Really just a way to measure the total number of absolute changes that have occurred. All energy causes change, it is all linked to entropy and information, it is likely zero in total... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

by sgdpk 6y ago

peter_d_sherman 6y ago

This is interesting! The idea that in Physics, Heat = Information, that is, an identity or potential identity. Now, i'm currently 50/50 on that idea, that is, that Heat = Information (and vice versa). I'd love to see something which conclusively proves this, with say, the rigor of a mathematical or logical proof. Also, if Heat = Information, then we need some way of accounting for what happens when a system cools, that is, how does the information (again, without being lost) propagate into the environment, such that when an object cools, no information is lost? As I said, I'm 50/50 on this idea... I'd like to see a really good proof. The best proof would be short, logical, and highly consistent... Prove to me that no information is lost, or are we just accepting that because heat physically difuses and no heat is lost, that no information is as well? That would be both a simple and logical explanation, but then we'd have to search the entire universe for no physical anomaly (to be sure that we're absolutely correct), that is, there's no exceptional case where heat in a system was lost or gained without exchange with an external system... which is quite the search, let me tell you! See, if we think that heat is never lost in the universe, we got that idea from somewhere... it may have been given to us as one of the first axioms given to us in an elementary Physics class... but where does it come from that brought it there, and why do we never question it? Help me to understand...

sukilot 6y ago
You'll need to read advanced thermodynamic textbooks.
peter_d_sherman 6y ago
Addendum: OK, here's my problem... Soil temperature. That is, when you dig more than a few feet into the soil, more than a few feet into the ground -- what you'll find is consistent ground temperature, no matter what part of the world you're in, no matter how hot or how cold the above climate is. See, if there is conservation of heat, and the center of our planet is as hot as the sun -- then why doesn't/hasn't this heat diffused out across the entire interior of the planet? If you heat soil that's more than a few feet down up, it's going to cool, and if you cool it, it's going to heat back up. Sure, you could argue that this heat is moved and diffused into the adjacent ground/soil, but are we really sure that there isn't some other kind of phenomena going on there? Objects get very cool in outer space... near zero, yet they get hot, extremely hot, when the suns rays, unshielded by the earth's atmosphere, touch them. How do objects cool down in space, if by definition, space is a vacuum, and vacuum = thermal insulation? In other words, I have a Thermos(tm), with a vaccuum chamber inside of it on one hand, and the vaccuum of outer space on the other. The Thermos keeps my cold beverages cold, and my hot beverages hot. It does this by preventing thermal dissipation. It does this by putting a vacuum between the interior and exterior containers. In outer space, on the other hand, if sunlight is blocked for whatever reason, temperatures of objects get very, very cold. Where does the heat (aka, information) go, if space is a vacuum? You see, the paradoxes with respect to vacuums, and thus heat transfer in vacuums, and thus Heat = Information abound... Perhaps they would be solved if heat could travel through the vacuum (radiant energy?) in an effect much like Quantum Tunneling -- just the outer space / heat -- version of that? I'm not an expert in any of these areas... Can anyone help me out?
- dr_zoidberg 6y ago
  Heat is radiated as infrared light in a vacuum, and it's an extremely slow process compared to convection and conduction. Read about black body radiation[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation
  - peter_d_sherman 6y ago
    Black body radiation is interesting and does make sense, but then it brings up another question, which is: "If there is black body radiation everywhere in space -- then why doesn't space itself heat up until it's eventually the temperature of the Sun?" Maybe objects in space, such as planets, act as "heat drains" for the rest of space... that is, all of the heat (information) in space eventually winds up at a physical planet, or other object in space... If this is true, then this leads to an interesting identity, which is basically that every element, that is, everything on the periodic table from hydrogen on downward, is not just an element, not just matter, but also has an identity in terms of heat/information... In other words, every single element (and by extension substance) is what it is, but could also be thought about simultaneously as heat, and simultaneously as information. Which brings up endothermic/exothermic chemical reactions. That is, chemical reactions between two or more elements (for example, hydrogen and oxygen combining to produce water) where heat is produced (combining them via fire), or where heat is consumed (note that the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis, as far as I know, is neither endothermic or exothermic -- so where did the information go? Into the electricity? It's possible, we can't rule out that possibility...) And then the next question... Do chemical elements combined as a compound (such as water) then store the information as heat from the reaction somehow, or does it somehow dissipate, does that information somehow come back when they are separated? I don't know the answer to any of these questions; I'm just thinking aloud, but my intutive mind says that there may be something to discover there...
    - goldenkey 6y ago
      Yeah information <=> energy. Change of state is equivalent mathematically to movement in a "dimension." Action in physics is energy times time. Really just a way to measure the total number of absolute changes that have occurred. All energy causes change, it is all linked to entropy and information, it is likely zero in total... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]