From: Jonathan Rochkind <jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu>
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 94 13:28:18 PDT
To: doug@OpenMind.com
Subject: Re: All the free energy in the universe
Message-ID: <199407092028.QAA25498@cs.oberlin.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> The late Nobel laureate Richard Feynman became very interested in the
> subject of computation and physics towards the end of his life.  My
> understanding is that he concluded that there was no apparent
> limitation to the amount of computation that could be completed with a
> given amount of free energy.  Computation may indeed always dissipate
> energy, but Feyman's conclusion was that this dissipated energy can be
> made arbitrarily small -- that there is no fundamental quantum
> limitation on the amount of computation that can be performed at any
> given mass-energy scale. 
 
Actually, I _think_ I've read an article in a pop-science magazine about 
some work of Hawking's that indicated there was a minimum amount of energy 
neccesary to do some sort of quanta of computation. (is there such a thing
? I don't know enough about the math, I'm afraid. INformation theory?)
If my memory serves, he used this to hint at a solution to the 
"why does time only flow in one direction, when the mathematics are perfectly
symmetrical both ways?" question. 
 
But I could be wrong. Sorry I don't have any better info then you.