A few days ago I was reading an article in new scientist (Summon a ‘demon’ to turn information into energy), it’s the usual kind of stuff except one phrase really caught my eye: at room temperature, one bit of information converts to about 3 x 10-21 joules.
That’s freaky! I’ve often come across phrases taking about about data-compression and entropy in the same sentance, but this small statement means that there is a real, honest to goodness, relationship between the physical world and the world of information.
The numbers are still very small, but none the less actual numbers!
Slightly less freaky, but impressive is that someone called Leó Szilárd actually worked out this value theoretically way back in 1929, and have been shown to be right by this experiment.
1929 – that’s 10 years before the first electronic computers!
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