Information in the holographic universe
Information in the holographic universe
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DOI：
10.1038/scientificamerican0803-58
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发表时间：
2003-08-01
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
Bekenstein, JD
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bekenstein, JD
然而，如果说我们从工程学、生物学和物理学中学到了什么，那么信息也同样是一个至关重要的因素。汽车工厂的机器人配备了金属和塑料，但如果没有大量的指令告诉它应该焊接哪个部件，等等，它就不能制造出任何有用的东西。你体内细胞中的核糖体由氨基酸组成块供应，并由ATP转化为ADP所释放的能量提供动力，但如果没有细胞核中DNA带来的信息，它就不能合成任何蛋白质。同样，一个世纪以来物理学的发展告诉我们，信息是物理系统和过程中的关键角色。事实上，由普林斯顿大学的约翰·A·惠勒倡导的一种当前趋势是，认为物理世界是由信息组成的，能量和物质是附带的。这一观点引发了人们对古老问题的新看法。硬盘等设备的信息存储容量一直在突飞猛进地增长。这样的进步何时会停止？比方说，一台重量不到一克、能装进一立方厘米(大致相当于电脑芯片大小)的设备，最终的信息容量是多少？有多少信息
Yet if we have learned anything from engineering, biology and physics, information is just as crucial an ingredient. The robot at the automobile factory is supplied with metal and plastic but can make nothing useful without copious instructions telling it which part to weld to what and so on. A ribosome in a cell in your body is supplied with amino acid building blocks and is powered by energy released by the conversion of ATP to ADP, but it can synthesize no proteins without the information brought to it from the DNA in the cell’s nucleus. Likewise, a century of developments in physics has taught us that information is a crucial player in physical systems and processes. Indeed, a current trend, initiated by John A. Wheeler of Princeton University, is to regard the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals. This viewpoint invites a new look at venerable questions. The information storage capacity of devices such as hard disk drives has been increasing by leaps and bounds. When will such progress halt? What is the ultimate information capacity of a device that weighs, say, less than a gram and can fit inside a cubic centimeter (roughly the size of a computer chip)? How much information