OT: This Swift thing

[Gregory Ewing]

Rustom Mody wrote:
> JFTR: Information processing and (physics) energy are about as convertible
> as say: "Is a kilogram smaller/greater than a mile?"

Actually, that's not true. There is a fundamental
thermodynamic limit on the minimum energy needed to
flip a bit from one state to the other, so in that
sense there's a relationship between watts and
bits per second.

We're nowhere near reaching that limit with
current technology, though. In principle, our
CPUs could be a lot more energy-efficient.

(That doesn't mean they would convert a smaller
proportion of their energy input into heat. It
means they would need less energy input in the
first place).

-- 
Greg