BREMERMANN's LIMIT
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 340 ▶ |
| Object type | Discipline oriented, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
- “No data processing system, whether artificial or living can compute more that 2 x 1047 bits per second and per gram of its mass” (as stated by K. KRIPPENDORFF, 1986, p.8).
G. KLIR writes: “Using the limit of information processing obtained for one gram of mass and one second of processing time, BREMERMANN then calculates the total number of bits processed by an hypothetical computer the size of the Earth within a time period equal to the estimated age of the Earth… This imaginary computer would not be able to process more than 2.56 x 1092 bits, or when rounding up 1093 bits. This last number 1093 is usually referred to as BREMERMANN's limit and problems that require processing more than 1093 bits of information are called transcomputational problems” (1993, p.44-5)
KLIR adds: “The problem of transcomputationality arises in various contexts. One of them is pattern recognition… Another context… is the area of testing large-scale integrated digital circuits”. As a result, we need a “science of simplification” to reduce the problems of complex systems to a manageable size. This is one of the basic aims of systemics.“
K. KRIPPENDORFF writes that the limit “refers to a self-contained system where the power supply is included in the total mass and where computation is defined as the transmission of information over one or more channels within the system. Recognizing that computation requires energy for changing physical markers and for recognizing such changes in subsequent steps, the limit is obtained from EINSTEIN's relation between energy and matter, E=mc2 , and HEISENBERG's uncertainty principle, which specifies the inaccuracy or noise in the measurement of energy” (1986, p.8).
For a suggestive development about “Everything material stops at 10100 ” see W. ROSS ASHBY (1974, 166-9).