Quantum Entanglement Means Computers Could Cool Themselves By Deleting Information
The Tianhe-1A Supercomputer NVIDIABut don't wipe your hard drives just yet It's common empirical knowledge that computing generates heat--go ahead, touch the bottom of your MacBook--but a new paper in the journal Nature claims that it doesn't have to. In fact, under the right conditions, theoretical physicists say that deleting data can actually produce negative heat--that is, it can have a cooling effect. That's right, this is a quantum mechanics post. Exit now if you don't want a headache to start the weekend. The phenomenon here has to do with basic rules about knowledge and the lack of knowledge, and it is rooted firmly in the definition of entropy and how information theory, thermodynamics, and quantum theory define it differently (and also in the same way). But the idea is thus: If it were technologically possible (and it should be, perhaps someday) to quantum-mechanically entangle the bits to be deleted with...