Thermodynamic cost of copying

• Copying has no inherent thermodynamic cost

  • If we do it slowly enough
  • Dissipating negligible energy

• A reversible computation, that proceeds at an infinitesimal rate, destroying no information, consumes no energy

  • Regardless of the complexity of the computation
  • The only cost is in resetting the machine at the end

• Reversible computers are like heat engines

  • If we run a reversible heat engine at an infinitesimal pace, it consumes no energy other than the work that it does

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