From: hal@finney.org
Date: Fri Jun 08 2001 - 01:16:53 MDT
Leonardo Gonzalez, <magos@extropian.net>, writes:
> I had a crazy idea some time ago... based upon hopes of quantum principles I
> do not understand...
>
> the generation of energy from information.
>
> Might there be a way to harness the organized structure of information and
> extract from it a form of energy?
Yes, I have seen analyses in the theory of reversible computers which
have this flavor. Organized information can serve in effect as an engine
for driving computations.
It turns out that you don't necessarily need energy to make things
happen, you can use a source of anti-entropy. In chemistry we learn
that a reaction will go forward if delta energy - T delta entropy is
negative [1]. You can have the entropy increase or the energy decrease
to achieve this.
In asking for energy from information, you are thinking of the first
term, delta energy to make things happen. But actually with information
you are already in position to drive a mechanism using the second term,
delta entropy. All that highly ordered information is just waiting to
be randomized and turned into entropy.
In principle you can use this to drive an engine just like you can
use energy. I think there are some chemical and perhaps biological
phenomena which can be thought of as entropy engines (evaporating water
is a trivial example). I speculated some time back that Drexler's
sorting rotors (which draw power to decrease entropy by sorting atoms)
could perhaps be run backwards, producing power by turning information
into entropy as separated groups of atoms mix.
Hal
[1] http://www.ucdsb.on.ca/tiss/stretton/chem2/entropy5.htm
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