# NewScientist article on the ultimate laptop

From: Wei Dai (weidai@eskimo.com)
Date: Sun Sep 03 2000 - 18:57:16 MDT

There is a new article in the NewScientist about Seth Lloyd's paper on
the physical limits of computation. The article is here:

or you can get the original paper here:

Abstract:

Computers are physical systems: what they can and cannot do is dictated
by the laws of physics. In particular, the speed with which a physical
device can process information is limited by its energy and the amount of
information that it can process is limited by the number of degrees of
freedom it possesses. This paper explores the physical limits of
computation as determined by the speed of light \$c\$, the quantum scale
\$\hbar\$ and the gravitational constant \$G\$. As an example, quantitative
bounds are put to the computational power of an `ultimate laptop' with a
mass of one kilogram confined to a volume of one liter.

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