Computing study refutes famous claim that 'information is physical'

July 11, 2016

A quote often attributed to Einstein reads: "Everybody knows that some things are simply impossible until somebody who doesn't know that makes them possible."

In 1961, Ralph Landauer at IBM published a work suggesting that information, usually considered a purely mathematical quantity, played a role in physics (IBM Journal Of Research And Development, Vol. 5, no. 3, 1961). Specifically, Landauer aimed at identifying the minimum required to do computation using standard thermodynamics. Landauer initially focused on a specific operation, today know as "Landauer reset," which consists of putting into a given logic state (e.g. "0" state) a binary switch that can be in each of the two possible logic states "0" or "1." Such an operation is sometimes interpreted as "information erasure," because it reduces the amount of information that can be associated with the binary switch. Before the operation, two possible states exist; after, there is only one possible state.

According to thermodynamics, such a reduction in the number of available states for a physical device requires a minimum energy expenditure, easily computable using previous work done by Boltzmann.

In the same paper, Landauer generalized this result associated with the reset operation to the cases in which there was a decrease of information between the input and the output of a computing system. This is the case of the so-called logically irreversible devices. Landauer wrote:

"We shall call a device logically irreversible if the output of a device does not uniquely define the inputs. We believe that devices exhibiting logical irreversibility are essential to computing. Logical irreversibility, we believe, in turn implies physical irreversibility, and the latter is accompanied by dissipative effects."

In fact, most of the standard logic operations in ordinary computers show "logical irreversibility." This is the case, for example, of the "OR" gate, in which there are two bits at the input and one bit at the output. In this way, the sole knowledge of the value of the output is not enough to infer the actual values of the inputs (from this the idea of "irreversibility").

Soon after Landauer's paper, other scientists worked to deepen and extend this principle to more general aspects of information processing. The most important result in this effort is attributed to Charles Henry Bennett, also at IBM. In 1973, he published a work titled "Logical reversibility of computation" (IBM Journal of Research and Development, vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 525-532, 1973), in which he proposed a model of computing with no information decrease between the input and output of any logic operation.

The motivation that led Bennet to introduce logical reversible operations was to overcome the minimum energy expenditure introduced earlier by Landauer. Bennet wrote:

"Landauer has posed the question of whether logical irreversibility is an unavoidable feature of useful computers, arguing that it is, and has demonstrated the physical and philosophical importance of this question by showing that whenever a physical computer throws away information about its previous state it must generate a corresponding amount of entropy. Therefore, a computer must dissipate at least kBT ln2 of energy (about 3 X 10-21 Joule at room temperature) for each bit of information it erases or otherwise throws away."

This limit was generally attributed to all the logical irreversible devices, and among them, the traditional logic gates like "OR", "AND" and "NAND." The work of Landauer and Bennet inspired a significant amount of scientific literature opposing or supporting the existence of such a minimum limit. It's no exaggeration to state that for more than 40 years, the topic has been considered highly controversial.

Now, an experiment has settled this controversy. It clearly shows that there is no such minimum energy limit and that a logically irreversible gate can be operated with an arbitrarily small energy expenditure. Simply put, it is not true that logical reversibility implies physical irreversibility, as Landauer wrote.

The results of this experiment by the scientists of NiPS Laboratory at the University of Perugia are published today in Nature Communications. They measured the amount of energy dissipated during the operation of an "OR" gate (that is clearly a logically irreversible gate) and showed that the logic operation can be performed with an energy toll as small as 5 percent of the expected limit of kBT ln2. The conclusion of the Nature Communications article is that there is no fundamental limit and reversible logic is not required to operate computers with zero .

Why did it take so long to discover this? Partly because the experiment had to achieve exceptional sensitivity in order to show that the Landauer limit could be beaten: more than 10 to 21 Joule, where 1 Joule is the energy that it takes to raise an apple one meter above the ground. This is a very small amount of energy.

What are the implications of this discovery? The "OR" logic gate used by the scientists is realized with a micro-electromechanical cantilever, acted on by electrostatic forces. Although it cannot be considered a promising new technology for substituting the energetically expensive transistors in today's computers, the importance of the experiment is in the demonstration that there is no limit to how much we can lower energy consumption during computation. This will change our understanding of the energy dissipation processes and push research forward.

This result is likely to impact future developments at least in the following aspects:

  • It will push the research towards "zero-power" computing: the search for new information processing devices that consume less energy. This is of strategic importance for the future of the entire ICT sector that has to deal with the problem of excess heat production during computation.
  • It will call for a deep revision of the "reversible computing" field. In fact, one of the main motivations for its own existence (the presence of a lower energy bound) disappears.

Though Landauer famously said "information is physical," it turns out that is not so physical after all.

Explore further: Experiment shows magnetic chips could dramatically increase computing's energy efficiency

More information: M. López-Suárez et al. Sub-kBT micro-electromechanical irreversible logic gate, Nature Communications (2016). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12068

Related Stories

Quantum processor for single photons

July 7, 2016

"Nothing is impossible!" In line with this motto, physicists from the Quantum Dynamics Division of Professor Gerhard Rempe (director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) managed to realise a quantum logic gate in ...

Holographic dark information energy

May 30, 2011

Holographic Dark Information Energy gets my vote for the best mix of arcane theoretical concepts expressed in the shortest number of words – and just to keep it interesting, it’s mostly about entropy.

Recommended for you

Lego-like wall produces acoustic holograms

October 14, 2016

Research Triangle engineers have developed a simple, energy-efficient way to create three-dimensional acoustic holograms. The technique could revolutionize applications ranging from home stereo systems to medical ultrasound ...

Physicists pass spin information through a superconductor

October 14, 2016

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have made a discovery that could lay the foundation for quantum superconducting devices. Their breakthrough solves one the main ...

JILA's superradiant laser may one day boost atomic clocks

October 14, 2016

JILA physicists have demonstrated a novel laser design based on synchronized emissions of light from the same type of atoms used in advanced atomic clocks. The laser could be stable enough to improve atomic clock performance ...

Temperature difference propels droplets

October 14, 2016

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed a new way of driving fluid droplets across surfaces in a precisely controlled way. The method could open up new possibilities for highly adaptable microfluidic devices, as well ...

Physicists dispel Rayleigh's curse

October 14, 2016

The resolution of an optical system (like a telescope or a camera) is limited by the so-called Rayleigh criterion. An international team, led by Complutense University of Madrid, has broken this limit, showing that it is ...

12 comments

Adjust slider to filter visible comments by rank

Display comments: newest first

Eikka
3 / 5 (1) Jul 11, 2016
it turns out that information is not so physical after all.


That depends on whether the energy needed is truly zero or just arbitrarily small.

At some point you'll reach some sort of Planck limit with energy quanta and "information" in terms of less energy becomes meaningless because the change it makes in our reality is too small - or smaller physical changes become impossible - so it makes no difference and therefore does not exist.

What exactly is information that does not have a physical manifestation? How do you - a physical entity - interact with such information? Via magic??
Jim4321
5 / 5 (1) Jul 11, 2016
Well. If a physical being can measure information with an arbitrarily small cost in energy -- then it would seem that Maxwell's demon becomes possible. Could the experimenters here, demonstrate that this is impossible within their set-up. If we can disentangle these two sets of ideas (information and entropy), perhaps some more progress can be made.
winthrom
not rated yet Jul 11, 2016
"where 1 Joule is the energy that it takes to raise an apple one meter above the ground." apple??? How about a Newton instead?

https://en.wikipe...ki/Joule

"The joule (/ˈdʒuːl/), symbol J, is a derived unit of energy in the International System of Units.[1] It is equal to the energy transferred (or work done) to an object when a force of one newton acts on that object in the direction of its motion through a distance of one metre (1 newton metre or N·m)."
Eikka
not rated yet Jul 12, 2016
How about a Newton instead?


If your apple weighs 100 grams, the potential energy it gains from being lifted up one meter is approximately 0.982 Joules give or take depending on where on earth you reside.
torbjorn_b_g_larsson
5 / 5 (1) Jul 16, 2016
Well, it is published in Nature (Communications), so it must be true. =D

But it likely is, and I am not surprised. Information measures are relative to a system (e.g. Shannon information, Kolmogorov entropy, quantum unitarity, et cetera), and the only absolute result ever claimed in any field is Landauer's.

@Jim: Good point! The Maxwell demon doesn't depend on shared information, but memory. I would have to read the paper, but I suspect the demon is circumvented by reversible memory operations.
torbjorn_b_g_larsson
5 / 5 (1) Jul 16, 2016
@Eikka: The thermodynamic irreversibility phenomena is irrespective of Planck scales, it only depends on openness of a system.

I don't understand your question though. Information is relative to a system, say in Shannon's channel messages or Kolmogorov entropy of strings, who both depend on your coding. You can ask the same thing for any relative measure, say "redness" of a color of a spectra. 'What exactly is color that does not have a physical manifestation? How do you - a physical entity - interact with such color?'

The answer is that the physical manifestation is underlying the emergent code/colorization that you decide. But it doesn't depend on the code/color scheme, nor does the code/color scheme depend on the exact physics.
NatsBits
not rated yet Jul 19, 2016
The paper paper clearly states that the Landauer principle holds:
"We stress here that our experiment does not question the so-called Landauer-reset interpretation, where a net decrease of physical entropy requires a minimum energy expenditure".
Charles Bennett showed in his famous review "The Thermodynamics of Computation" (1981), that computations (AND, OR, XOR etc. gates) could be designed in a reversible, dissipationless manner. The only one place where a computer needs to dissipate energy if for the erasure. Hence, I found the demonstration in Nature Communication paper really nice and interesting, but not surprising at all.
epoxy
Jul 29, 2016
This comment has been removed by a moderator.
epoxy
Jul 29, 2016
This comment has been removed by a moderator.
epoxy
Jul 29, 2016
This comment has been removed by a moderator.
epoxy
Jul 29, 2016
This comment has been removed by a moderator.
epoxy
Aug 01, 2016
This comment has been removed by a moderator.

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.