Column: The Physics of Digital Information-Part 2

Abstract

In part 1 of this series (Cohen, 2011a), we discussed some of the basics of building a physics of digital information. Assuming, as we have, that science is about causality and that a scientific theory should require that cause(C) produces effect (E) via mechanism M (written C→ME), we explore that general theory of digital systems from the perspective of attributing effects (i.e., traces of activities in digital systems) to their causes. Full details of the current version of this physics are available online2, and in this article, we explore a few more of them.(see PDF for full column)