Energy requirements in communication

Abstract

The accepted view maintains that at least kT loge2 must be dissipated per transmitted bit. This is the result of prevalent assumptions that communication is done by waves, in linear systems, and that the energy in the message must be dissipated. It is shown, through counterexamples, that there is no minimal dissipation per transmitted bit. The simplest counterexample is physical transport of bistable systems. As in computation and measurement, unavoidable minimal dissipation occurs only when information is discarded.