What is the theoretical limit of information density?
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What is the theoretical limit of information density?
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Re: What is the theoretical limit of information density?
#2This assumes that all information is stored physically.
Let's say you get a telegram. The telegram itself can contain maybe a couple of paragraphs of text. You might think the bandwidth of the channel is at most a kilobyte or so. But there's plenty of other aspects that can raise the amount of information conveyed. Say you get one saying "Short Dow." Just going by the content, you'd have no idea what it was saying. Is there a guy named Dow somewhere that's short? But if you're a stockbroker, all of a sudden there's a whole lot more info there. When you allow for context, information density can approach infinity.
Re: What is the theoretical limit of information density?
#3This assumes that all information is stored physically. Let's say you get a telegram. The telegram itself can contain maybe a couple of paragraphs of text. You might think the bandwidth of the channel is at most a kilobyte or so. But there's plenty of other aspects that can raise the amount of information conveyed. Say you get one saying "Short Dow." Just going by the content, you'd have no idea what it was saying. I…
No, let me paraphrase what you just said.
'If you can store infinite information outside of a system, then you can achieve infinite information density inside the system if you use outside the system as 'context'. I hope that paraphasing makes it clear enough the problem with this line of thinking. You have to include all the information when calculating absolute density. In your case, the context has to be stored somewhere too.
Re: What is the theoretical limit of information density?
#4This assumes that all information is stored physically. Let's say you get a telegram. The telegram itself can contain maybe a couple of paragraphs of text. You might think the bandwidth of the channel is at most a kilobyte or so. But there's plenty of other aspects that can raise the amount of information conveyed. Say you get one saying "Short Dow." Just going by the content, you'd have no idea what it was saying. I…
No, let me paraphrase what you just said. 'If you can store infinite information outside of a system, then you can achieve infinite information density inside the system if you use outside the system as 'context'. I hope that paraphasing makes it clear enough the problem with this line of thinking. You have to include all the information when calculating absolute density. In your case, the context has to be stored so…
If all information has to be accounted for and stored somewhere, and context is part of the information, then you can't store any information without storing all information, everywhere. Because every bit of information exists inside the context of the entire universe.
Re: What is the theoretical limit of information density?
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, let me paraphrase what you just said. 'If you can store infinite information outside of a system, then you can achieve infinite information density inside the system if you use outside the system as 'context'. I hope that paraphasing makes it clear enough the problem with this line of thinking. You have to include all the information when calculating absolute density. In your case, the context has to be stored so…
If all information has to be accounted for and stored somewhere, and context is part of the information, then you can't store any information without storing all information, everywhere. Because every bit of information exists inside the context of the entire universe.
You're getting very metaphysical here, but reality remains the same even if you expand these principles to the universe. The rules of physics still apply.
Re: What is the theoretical limit of information density?
#6This assumes that all information is stored physically. Let's say you get a telegram. The telegram itself can contain maybe a couple of paragraphs of text. You might think the bandwidth of the channel is at most a kilobyte or so. But there's plenty of other aspects that can raise the amount of information conveyed. Say you get one saying "Short Dow." Just going by the content, you'd have no idea what it was saying. I…
I think you're describing compression.
Re: What is the theoretical limit of information density?
#7You have a molecule. Something that will "stay put" probably written on a "2d" surface like Graphene.
Graphene is composed of lots of little hexagons. Each side of the hexagon can be broken and have an atom attached to it in "3d".
You have 6 sides and the angle break can go "up" or "down".
You can only use 3 sides however so that each hexagon has data and you can tell unique data.
This gives you 3 positions in 3 states, Up, down, or Flat. 0.142 nanometers per bond...
That's 27 states per hex, and 190 hexes per nanometer... 36,100 hexes per square nanometer...
I'm sure I screwed up a calculation in there somewhere. But Based on current tech this is my answer to what is possible to write. Now Reading might be a bit harder at any speed... but hey this is all theory right?
Re: What is the theoretical limit of information density?
#8This assumes that all information is stored physically. Let's say you get a telegram. The telegram itself can contain maybe a couple of paragraphs of text. You might think the bandwidth of the channel is at most a kilobyte or so. But there's plenty of other aspects that can raise the amount of information conveyed. Say you get one saying "Short Dow." Just going by the content, you'd have no idea what it was saying. I…
You are Dr. Who. You have a Tardis. It will convert your language in to any other language telepathically. Why not create a word that means the summation of everything you know, and say it to a person. They create a word that means the summation of everything they know and everything you know and say it to the next person...
Re: What is the theoretical limit of information density?
#9This assumes that all information is stored physically. Let's say you get a telegram. The telegram itself can contain maybe a couple of paragraphs of text. You might think the bandwidth of the channel is at most a kilobyte or so. But there's plenty of other aspects that can raise the amount of information conveyed. Say you get one saying "Short Dow." Just going by the content, you'd have no idea what it was saying. I…
No, let me paraphrase what you just said. 'If you can store infinite information outside of a system, then you can achieve infinite information density inside the system if you use outside the system as 'context'. I hope that paraphasing makes it clear enough the problem with this line of thinking. You have to include all the information when calculating absolute density. In your case, the context has to be stored so…
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Re: What is the theoretical limit of information density?
#10This assumes that all information is stored physically. Let's say you get a telegram. The telegram itself can contain maybe a couple of paragraphs of text. You might think the bandwidth of the channel is at most a kilobyte or so. But there's plenty of other aspects that can raise the amount of information conveyed. Say you get one saying "Short Dow." Just going by the content, you'd have no idea what it was saying. I…
You are Dr. Who. You have a Tardis. It will convert your language in to any other language telepathically. Why not create a word that means the summation of everything you know, and say it to a person. They create a word that means the summation of everything they know and everything you know and say it to the next person...
Even better - attribute a meaning, in that language, to refusing to say anything to the next person (remaining silent). Then you can put the summation of everything they know and everything you know into the case where you don't say anything (in that language).
This is similar to making a version of gcc that outputs a Tetris program everytime it's asked to compile a 0-byte file, or maybe outputs all of Wikipedia. I mean, sure, you can hide Tetris, or the whole of human knowledge, in 0 bytes this way. But it's not a very useful exercise.