Abstract

The physical foundation of a computer, specifically, the thermodynamic and quantum mechanical limits, has been an interesting theoretical subject for many years. The uncertainty relation between information and energy, exemplified by Maxwell’s demon¹⁾, suggests that there exists a fundamental limit on minimum energy cost per unit of information processing. The most important development in this field in the last ten years has been a reversible logic proposed by Fredkin and Toffoh²⁾.

© 1988 Optical Society of America