On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 12:05:57PM +0100, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: > > Let us take a hard disk. Can I save more information on it at higher > or lower temperatures?
This is a strictly ambiguous question. If we take the usual meaning of hard disk as including a particular apparatus (heads, controller logic, SATA interface and so on) to read and write the data, then there will be a limited range of temperatures over which that apparatus will operate. Outside of that range, (both higher and lower) the information storage will fall to zero. That is a purely engineering question. On the other hand, if you just gave me the metallic platter from the hard disk, and did not restrict in any way the technology used to read and write the data, then in principle, the higher the temperature, the more information is capable of being encoded on the disk. In practice, various phase transitions will make this more difficult to achieve as temperature is increased. Passing the curie point, for instance, will mean we can no longer rely on magnetism, although presumably even below the curie point we can increase the information storage in some other way (eg moving atoms around by an STM) and ignoring the ferromagnetic behaviour. By the same token, passing the freezing and boiling points will make it even harder - but still doable with sufficiently advanced technology. > > > >>From an engineering viewpoint it looks a bit strange. > > > How so? > > > > If engineers would take the statement "the maximum possible value > for information increases with temperature" literally, they should > operate a hard disk at higher temperatures (the higher the better > according to such a statement). Yet this does not happens. Do you > know why? > > In general we are surrounded devices that store information (hard > discs, memory sticks, DVD, etc.). The information that these devices > can store, I believe, is known with accuracy to one bit. Because they're engineered that way. It would be rather inconvenient if one's information storage varied with temperature. > Can you > suggest a thermodynamic state which entropy gives us exactly that > amount of information? > > Here would be again a question about temperature. If I operate my > memory stick in some reasonable range of temperatures, the > information it contains does not change. Yet, the entropy in my view > changes. Sure - because they're engineered that way, and they operate a long way from the theoretical maximum storage capability of that matter. What's the problem with that? > > So these are my doubts for which I do not see an answer. > > Evgenii > -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
