> 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.
Isn't a disk in its "erased state"--whether storing zeroes or random values--still storing information?...
> An example of true erased state would be an array of bits in a magnetic data storage memory, in which the erase operation does not imply reset of all bits to identical magnetized state, but total demagnetization of each bit, so neither 1, nor 0 could be identified in any of the bits.
But if you instead think of the drive as a ternary storage system, now it suddenly would be storing actual valid values, and you can also always define the magnetic readings to be a fully analog storage: so this definition of "information" has to be flawed for being subjective.
Something with a lack of information would need to be something of high entropy--essentially the opposite of information--and thereby more indistinguishable along some axis towards a chaotic gas or whatever.
> From (6), mbit = 0 at T = 0K, so as expected, no information can exist at zero absolute.
Isn't this the exact opposite of correct? Information is maximized at absolute zero, which is used as the definition point of minimal entropy (which is, again, the lack of information).
Yeah I'm struggling with that bit also; shouldn't information content be defined as the difference between a storage device with all bits set to the same 0 or 1 value, vs. a device with all bits set to purely random values? And can you isolate a measure of information content from the system that generates that information?
Isn't a disk in its "erased state"--whether storing zeroes or random values--still storing information?...
> An example of true erased state would be an array of bits in a magnetic data storage memory, in which the erase operation does not imply reset of all bits to identical magnetized state, but total demagnetization of each bit, so neither 1, nor 0 could be identified in any of the bits.
But if you instead think of the drive as a ternary storage system, now it suddenly would be storing actual valid values, and you can also always define the magnetic readings to be a fully analog storage: so this definition of "information" has to be flawed for being subjective.
Something with a lack of information would need to be something of high entropy--essentially the opposite of information--and thereby more indistinguishable along some axis towards a chaotic gas or whatever.
> From (6), mbit = 0 at T = 0K, so as expected, no information can exist at zero absolute.
Isn't this the exact opposite of correct? Information is maximized at absolute zero, which is used as the definition point of minimal entropy (which is, again, the lack of information).