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Dec 9, 2022

Is Information the Fifth State of Matter in the Universe?

Posted by in categories: biological, mathematics, particle physics, space

Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, with the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research via Chris Adami, Paul Davies, AIP Advances, EurekaAlert and University of Portsmouth

“Information,” wrote Arizona State University astrophysicist Paul Davies in an email to The Daily Galaxy, “is a concept that is both abstract and mathematical. It lies at the foundation of both biology and physics.”

Viewing information at the cosmic level, physicist Melvin Vopson at the University of Portsmouth in the UK has estimated in a paper how much information a single elementary particle, like an electron, stores about itself. He then used this calculation to estimate the staggering amount of information contained in the entire observable Universe. Practical experiments can now be used, he suggested, to test and refine these predictions, including research to prove or disprove the hypothesis that information is the fifth state of matter in the universe beyond solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.

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