The Digital Age began in the early 1990s (ca. The connection between information, the physical Universe and theoretical physicists has been speculated since the beginning of the Digital Age (ca. All matter is composed of information that describes the quantum system (aka. It is not unreasonable to believe that physical reality could be expressed in data, given the quantum information and our DNA code.
Researchers have tried to determine the information capacity of the cosmos through many paradoxes and thought experiments. Recent research by Dr. Melvin M. Vopson, a Mathematician at Portsmouth University, provided new estimates on how much information is encoded within all baryonic matter (aka. Ordinary or luminous matter) are the two types of matter found in the Universe.
His research findings were recently published in AIP Advances, an American Institute of Physics publication. Vopsons' research is unique in that it relies on Information Theory (IT), a field of study which studies the transmission, processing and extraction of information.
Illustration of data coming from the central region in the Milky Way. Credit: UCLA SETI Group/Yuri Beletsky, Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory
His innovative approach enabled him to address two questions related to IT: Why is information stored in the universe, and where is it? And How much information is stored within the universe. Vopson explained this in an AIP press release.
Since more than half a century, the question of the information capacity of our universe has been debated. Although there have been many attempts to estimate the information contents of the universe, this paper describes a unique approach that also postulates how much information can be compressed into one elementary particle.
Similar research has explored the possibility of information being physical and can be measured. However, it remains unclear what the exact physical significance of this relationship is. Vopson relied upon the pioneering work of Information Theory, a mathematician and cryptographer, to answer this question.
In a 1948 paper entitled A Mathematical Theory of Communication (a term Shannon coined), Shannon described his method of quantifying information. This led to the adoption of the bit as a measurement unit. Vopson was not the first to explore IT and physical encoded data. He previously addressed the question of how physical information can be extrapolated in order to estimate the data's mass.
This was described in his 2019 paper, The mass-energy-information equivalence principle, which extends Einsteins theories about the interrelationship of matter and energy to data itself. Vopsons study, consistent with IT, was based upon the principle that information can be registered by all physical systems. He found that an individual bit or information at room temperature (300K), is 3.19-1038 kg (8.598x1038 lbs).
Quantum information can be described in data as one way to express the physical Universe. Credit: University of Nottingham
Vopson took Shannon's method one step further and determined that each elementary particle in the visible Universe contains the equivalent of 1.509 bits encoded information. This is the first time that this method has been used to measure the information content in the universe. It also provides a clear numerical prediction. The numerical prediction, even if it is not 100% accurate, offers an avenue for experimental testing.
Vopson first used the well-known Eddington Number, which is the number of protons present in the universe. Current estimates put it at 1080. Vopson then developed a formula to determine the number of elementary particles present in the cosmos. Based on the temperature of observable material (stars and planets), he then calculated how much each particle would have.
Vopson then calculated that the total amount of encoded data is equal to 61080 bit. This number of bits, in computational terms, is equal to 7.5 1059 Zettabytes or 7.5 octodecillion Zettabytes. This is compared to the 64.2 zettabytes of data produced worldwide in 2020. This is a huge difference, which can only be described by the word astronomical.
These results are based on Vopson's previous research, which suggested that information was the fifth state in matter, along with solid, liquid and gas. Vopson also believed that Dark Matter could also be information. These results are consistent with many recent researches that have sought to understand how information and laws of physics interact.
This is due to the fact that black holes emit radiation. This means that black holes lose mass and don't retain the information of infalling material (as previously thought). Stephen Hawking was the first to discover this phenomenon. He appropriately called it Hawking Radiation.
Holographic theory is also raised. This theory is a combination of string theory and quantum gravity. It speculates that information creates physical reality, just as a projector creates a hologram. The Simulation Theory interpretation is more extreme and assumes that the entire Universe is a computer simulation. This theory is also known as the Planetarium Hypothesis.
This theory has its problems. For example, how do antimatter or neutrinos fit in to the equation. To get concrete values, it makes assumptions about how information is stored and transferred in the Universe. It is a novel and completely new way to estimate the information content in the Universe, from elementary particles through visible matter.
This research, together with Vopsons theories on information constituting the first form of matter (or Dark Matter), provides a solid foundation for future studies that can be tested, falsified, and built upon. This research has long-term implications, including a possible explanation of quantum gravity and solutions to various paradoxes.
Additional Reading: AIP Advances, AIP Information
