A fascinating proposal from physicist Melvin Vopson suggests that information itself might be the actual 5th state of matter. The idea itself is intriguing in that it makes the information we hold a physical property. Perhaps this is the synthesis between material and idea that Berkely severed, triggering centuries of debate between materialists and idealists and all sorts of hybrids in between.
Vopson hopes to measure the physical properties of information using a matter-antimatter annihilation process that he hopes will produce “an extra dash of energy: two infrared, low-energy photons of a specific wavelength.” The studies are being conducted at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, where Vopson is studying information theory.
Information Could Be the Fifth State of Matter, Proving We Live in a Simulation
From www.popularmechanics.com
2022-03-30 21:02:13
Excerpt:
Trying to make sense of information is a universal daily experience. For physicist Melvin Vopson, this pursuit goes well beyond the mundane—he’s trying to prove that information has a physical presence. It’s a weighty task that could lead to new insights about how we can manage the future of information storage. It could also lead to a fundamental shift in how we think about the universe.
Vopson, who studies information theory at University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, wants to use an experiment to confirm that elementary particles have measurable mass. It would involve a matter-antimatter annihilation process that would shoot a beam of positrons at electrons in a piece of metal. Positrons and electrons are both subatomic particles, with the same mass and magnitude of charge. However, positrons are positively charged, and electrons are negatively charged. A sheet of metal has many free electrons, increasing the probability of collision with the incoming positrons.
Vopson proposes that a positron-electron annihilation should produce energy equivalent to the masses of the two particles. It should also produce an extra dash of energy: two infrared, low-energy photons of a specific wavelength (predicted to be about 50 microns), as a direct result of erasing the information content of the particles. Photons are particles of electromagnetic radiation.
