- #1
Naty1
- 5,606
- 40
In his book THE BLACK HOLE WAR, 2008, Leonard Susskind makes the following comments around page 135-137:
In the following he happens to be referring to a Planck scale cube...let's ignore that specific geometric shape...
(Later in the book of course he describes his holographic principle where bits are displayed on the surface area representing information in an enclosed volume...I don't care for the moment what shape you'd prefer.)
My question is whether the boldface is a bit of an overstatement: It seems like if some fundamental discrete scale is either required for a bit or is actually "created" by a bit...it can only be on or off...one of either two states...so I don't see how, for example, one bit in one fundamental scale entity could represent vacuum, a passing electromagnetic wave and/or a passing gravitational wave, let alone different matters...you can't represent all those things via a single bit...
or am I missing something...?? Can a fundamental unit vacuum entity in theory contain a bit...if information is made of matter?? Is there some area of physics that explains how quantum foam and uncertainty still enables a bit to be retained at the Planck scale??
I'm getting a headache...
In the following he happens to be referring to a Planck scale cube...let's ignore that specific geometric shape...
In the sense that physicsts use the word, information is made of matter...Is there a fundamental physical limitation to the amount of space needed to contain a single bit?According top Wheeler's "it from bit"...if we knew how to read the code we would know exactly what was going on in that piece of space...
(Later in the book of course he describes his holographic principle where bits are displayed on the surface area representing information in an enclosed volume...I don't care for the moment what shape you'd prefer.)
My question is whether the boldface is a bit of an overstatement: It seems like if some fundamental discrete scale is either required for a bit or is actually "created" by a bit...it can only be on or off...one of either two states...so I don't see how, for example, one bit in one fundamental scale entity could represent vacuum, a passing electromagnetic wave and/or a passing gravitational wave, let alone different matters...you can't represent all those things via a single bit...
or am I missing something...?? Can a fundamental unit vacuum entity in theory contain a bit...if information is made of matter?? Is there some area of physics that explains how quantum foam and uncertainty still enables a bit to be retained at the Planck scale??
I'm getting a headache...