The mass-energy-information equivalence principle

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Abstract

Landauer’s principle formulated in 1961 states that logical irreversibility implies physical irreversibility and demonstrated that information is physical. Here we formulate a new principle of mass-energy-information equivalence proposing that a bit of information is not just physical, as already demonstrated, but it has a finite and quantifiable mass while it stores information. In this framework, it is shown that the mass of a bit of information at room temperature (300K) is 3.19 10-38 Kg. To test the hypothesis we propose here an experiment, predicting that the mass of a data storage device would increase by a small amount when is full of digital information relative to its mass in erased state. For 1Tb device the estimated mass change is 2.5 10-25 Kg.
Original languageEnglish
Article number095206
Number of pages4
JournalAIP Advances
Volume9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Sept 2019

Keywords

  • information theory
  • digital information
  • physics of information
  • dark matter
  • RCUK
  • EPSRC
  • EP/R028656/1

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