Thermodynamics of Computation and the Physics of Information

Poster about the event: Physics and Information poster (PDF , 78kb)

Abstract: Thermodynamics of Computation & the Physics of Information

Landauer's Principle, according to which irreversible computations are entropy increasing, connects physics with information. John Norton argues that the foundations of the physics of information are built on sand. My colleagues and I have responded to his critique with an analysis of what it means to say a physical system implements a computation, and the application of thermodynamics to microscopic processes and systems such as the one-molecule gas. Norton has responded and developed a further more general case against the thermodynamics of computation. I will present a summary of the debate to date and ask what Norton's recent no-go theorem means for the physics of information.