As Some Physicists Claim, Is Information the Fifth State of Matter? General Theory of Information Says No.

EasyChair Preprint 8112

Abstract

Some researchers suggest that the information is a form of matter calling it the fifth state of matter or the fifth element. In this paper, we use the general theory of information (GTI) to assert that information is not physical by itself although it has a physical representation. As a result, the representation of information in the form of a physical structure results in its materialization. Therefore, a bit of information does not have mass but the physical structure that represents the bit indeed has mass. Moreover, the same bit can have multiple representations in the form of a physical substance (e.g., a symbol on a paper or a state of a flip-flop circuit, or an electrical voltage or current pulse.) Naturally, these different physical representations can have different masses although the information will be the same.

Keyphrases: Fifth state of matter, General theory of information, Mass-energy-information-knowledge correspondence, information, knowledge

@booklet{EasyChair:8112,
  author    = {Mark Burgin and Rao Mikkilineni},
  title     = {As Some Physicists Claim, Is Information the Fifth State of Matter? General Theory of Information Says No.},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 8112},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2022}}