Calculate the amount of information?

[Kedas]

Hi,

 

Does someone know if there is a way to calculate the amount of information of something (object, area, atom)? Would it have a unit?

[insane_alien]

depends what information you want. you could theoretically get an infinite amount of data from something like a neutrino but you would need more particles than there are in the universe to store it(even with winrar)

[Kedas]

So you say that an neutrino contains an infinite amount of information??

I don't want to store it I only want to know how much there is.

 

"even with winrar" that was funny

Doesn't the amount of information stay the same even if you compress it.

 

edit:

Found this article that gives some idea's

http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~mpf/lec3.html

and this one:

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~akempf/summary.shtml

[Klaynos]

Doesn't the amount of information stay the same even if you compress it.

 

Depends if it's lossy compression or not...

 

I'd speculate that the amount of data you could gather about a particle is probably limited by the uncertainty principle...

[krisse]

You have to define 'Information' before you can measure its value.

 

Is information something that exists only in our minds? Are 0's and 1's actual information before we process it?

Are there any information stored (hidden variables) in particles before we measure it? Quantum Mechanics suggests that there aren't - and that particles only attain 'real' properties when measured or otherwise observed.

 

If you are referring to entropy the question is of quite a different matter. And I would believe that the number might be measurable unless we assume that the universe is infinite, which of course would imply that entropy also be infinite. But in a closed system, such as you reefer to, I think that entropy might be measurable.

[insane_alien]

if you could measure every single parameter of a neutrion(radius(if it has one), mass, velocity,position, shape, coordinate map, etc.) to infinite accuracy then the amount of information would be infinite. this ignores the planck legnth heisenberg uncertaintity principle and probably some others that have/have not been discovered

[Kedas]

You have to define 'Information' before you can measure its value.

My definition of information in my question: everything you need to define it exactely at a certain time.

 

I don't think the heisenberg uncertainty principle has anything to do with it.

It's not because we can't retreive the information that it isn't there.

[Kedas]

if you could measure every single parameter of a neutrion(radius(if it has one), mass, velocity,position, shape, coordinate map, etc.) to infinite accuracy then the amount of information would be infinite. this ignores the planck legnth heisenberg uncertaintity principle and probably some others that have/have not been discovered

 

So what are you trying to say that it isn't infinite because of planck etc...?

I already assumed that.

[Klaynos]

My definition of information in my question: everything you need to define it exactely at a certain time.

 

I don't think the heisenberg uncertainty principle has anything to do with it.

It's not because we can't retreive the information that it isn't there.

 

Surely if it is completely unretrevable and always will be then for the sake of any meaningful value it is not there?

[Kedas]

Surely if it is completely unretrevable and always will be then for the sake of any meaningful value it is not there?

I see no reason to catalog it as 'not there' because we can't retreive it now.

If we can't detect any black matter then it isn't there. You must realize that this is calling it different based on what you don't know yet.

Besides I don't think that the heisenberg uncertainty principle wil survive the next 50 years.

[Kedas]

found some info here

http://www.metanexus.net/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf

and this one

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/quantum_astronomy_041216.html

it's more like psychology than physics.