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information engine

12.11.2022

The highlight of the year was the development of the so-called information engine, fueled by information. The prototype engine did the job solely by calculation, without spending any energy on it. Unfortunately, this discovery works only in the microcosm.

We all know about such a phenomenon as thermal noise. In the normal state, thermal fluctuations are random in nature and cannot do useful work. You can correct the situation with the help of feedback - information that could cut off the "braking" oscillations and fix the "working" ones. Then each time the engine would do only useful work, without spending energy on it in the form of fuel. The role of fuel in such a system would be played by information - this is a system for determining the perfect work and feedback that controls the engine.

A group of physicists from Simon Fraser University in Burnab, British Columbia, and the Institute for Fundamental Questions (FQXi) conducted an experiment in which a bacterium-sized glass bead was moved in a given direction by means of thermal noise and information about its position. The bead was placed in water and caught in a laser trap. Thermal vibrations of water molecules pushed the bead in all possible directions, but thanks to measurements of its position in water and feedback, the optical trap only moved in space (and kept the bead at a new level) when the movement went in the right direction.

The accuracy of determining the position of the bead in space left much to be desired, and thus the work of the "information" engine was small. It was possible to increase the efficiency of the engine after the inclusion in the algorithm of the so-called "Baesian solution estimation" - a statistical method that largely predicted the new position of the bead than measured it.

In fact, the "fuel" of such an engine was only information about the approximate position of the bead obtained by measurement, a calculation algorithm that reduces the measurement error, and a feedback mechanism that fixes the bead (work performed) at a new level. The process of performing the work was carried out by thermal noise. You can say it's free. Now scientists are thinking about experiments on how to do similar work from other sources of noise. If everything works out, it will be possible to receive energy from sources that the world has not yet dreamed of.

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