2019/09/01 by Melvin M. Vopson · 1 voice · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Scientific Research and Discoveries
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.5123794
openalex publication_date 2019/09/01 · openalex created_date 2019/09/12 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/30
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.