The mass-energy-information equivalence principle

A new principle of mass-energy-information equivalence has been formulated, proposing that a bit of digital information is not just physical, but it has a finite and quantifiable mass while it stores information.  

In this paper Dr Vopson, expands the Landauer’s principle to the mass - energy - information equivalence principle by providing viable arguments that the physical nature of digital information requires a bit of information to have a very small, non-zero mass. This is a very abstract concept with some speculative aspects, but it has the virtue of being verifiable in a laboratory environment and a possible experiment to validate the proposed idea is described in this letter. A successful test would offer a direct experimental confirmation of the mass - energy - information equivalence principle with far reaching implications in physics, cosmology, big data, computation and technologies. Within the digital Universe concept, all the baryonic matter has an associated information content. The estimated mass of a bit of information at T = 2.73K is m_bit = 2.91 × 10^-40 Kg. Assuming that all the missing dark matter is in fact information mass, the initial estimates indicate that ∼10⁹³ bits would be sufficient to explain all the missing dark matter in the visible Universe. Dr Vopson argue that information is a distinct form of matter, or the 5^th state, along the other four observable solid, liquid, gas, and plasma states of matter.
The paper is free to access from AIP Advances:  https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794

Theory suggests information has mass and could account for universe’s dark matter

Einstein’s theory of special relativity brought us one of the most famous equations in science, E=mc², and showed that energy and mass are equivalent. In our modern, high-tech world, operations involving digital information storage and processing require huge amounts of energy. This gives way to the theory behind the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, the idea that because a bit of information is energy, it must have mass as well.

Landauer’s principle links thermodynamics and digital information through logical irreversibility. Experiments have proven the process of deleting a bit of information dissipates heat energy, but after information is created, it can be stored with no energy loss. Melvin Vopson proposes this happens because once information is created, it acquires finite mass.

“This idea is laboratory testable in principle,” said Vopson. He suggests taking mass measurements of a digital data storage device when it has full memory. If it has more mass than when the device’s memory is cleared, then that would show the mass-energy-information equivalence is correct.

If the theory was to be confirmed, the implications would have an impact that could change the way we see the entire universe.

“For over 60 years, we have been trying unsuccessfully to detect, isolate or understand the mysterious dark matter,” said Vopson. “If information indeed has mass, a digital informational universe would contain a lot of it, and perhaps this missing dark matter could be information.”

Unfortunately, taking the extremely small measurement needed to such precision may currently be unachievable. Vopson proposes the next step to getting answers could be developing a sensitive interferometer similar to LIGO or an ultra-sensitive Kibble balance.

Source: “The mass-energy-information equivalence principle,” by Melvin M. Vopson, AIP Advances (2019). The article can be accessed at http://doi.org/10.1063/1.5123794.

Published by AIP Publishing (https://publishing.aip.org/authors/rights-and-permissions).

Our 3rd article on roughness control of magnetic properties published

Our third article on roughness control of magnetic properties of thin films has just been accepted for publication. After the studies on NiFe thin films, we have now expanded the investigation to Fe and Co thin films. Once again, the results confirm the original conclusion that substrate roughness can induce some kind of surface magnetic anisotropy modifying significantly the magnetic properties of the films. An excellent result, especially to Michal as this brings him a step closer to his PhD VIVA.
Read more here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physb.2019.411666 

 

Diamond Light Source Synchrotron measurements of anti-ferroelectrics work published

Research results from our Synchrotron and Mossbauer measurements of anti-ferroelectrics have just been published. Link to the on-line paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cap.2019.03.009