Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
(2) According to cTOE, the
mattergy category
(to which
energy
belongs) and the
liformation category
(to which
information
belongs) are mutually exclusive and
complementary aspects of
gnergy
and hence it would be impossible to convert
information
to
energy
in the same sense that
matter
can be converted into
energy
. The correct relation between
information
and
energy
may be derived
from Shannon's channel capacity equation (Shannon and Weaver 1949),
according to which no information can be transmitted nor any control exerted
without requisite dissipation of free energy (Sect. 4.8). Therefore, the
experiments recently performed by Toyabe et al. (2010) (and many similar
experiments reported in the literature during the past couple of decades) may
not demonstrate any
information-to-energy conversion
as claimed but rather the
energy requirement for controlling molecular events
as entailed by the channel
capacity equation of Shannon (Shannon and Weaver 1949).