17–20 May 2016
Galileo Galilei Institute, Firenze
Europe/Rome timezone

Does Analog Computation Exist?

18 May 2016, 11:30
20m
Room B (GGI)

Room B

GGI

Speaker

Maria Cristina Diamantini (PG)

Description

By establishing a relation between information erasure and continuous phase transitions we generalise the Landauer bound to analog computing systems. The entropy production per degree of freedom during erasure of an analog variable (reset to standard value) is given by the logarithm of the configurational volume measured in units of its minimal quantum. As a consequence every computation has to be carried on with a finite number of bits and infinite precision is forbidden by the fundamental laws of physics, since it would require an infinite amount of energy.

Primary author

Maria Cristina Diamantini (PG)

Co-author

Luca Gammaitoni (PG)

Presentation materials