A systems view of biological health

Section 5: Appendices

4 : Entropy and Information

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https://sites.google.com/site/massimilianoespositogennaro/publications-selected Pedro Harunari University of Luxembourg Title: “Thermodynamic limits of nonequilibrium communication” Abstract: Life and technology alike thrive on the efficient transmission of information through channels, enabling organisms to adapt and machines to compute. Yet, communication incurs a cost that is constrained by finite energy budgets. Despite its significance, the fundamental relationship between channel capacity---the key figure of merit in communication---and its thermodynamic cost remains poorly understood. Moreover, communication typically operates in nonequilibrium channels that consume energy even when information is no longer transmitted, leaving their thermodynamic cost unrestrained and futile. We show that the capacity of any communication channel to transmit information is universally constrained by the thermodynamic cost of establishing mutual information. Further, in the case of macroscopic systems, it is also constrained by the dissipation immediately following input switches. Both bounds become tighter if a coarse-grained entropy production is considered. We illustrate the findings in the canonical binary symmetric channel, in a model inspired by cell sensing, and in a realistic model for the CMOS inverter. http://cpls.scripts.mit.edu/wordpress/ Physics of Living and Non-Equilibrium Systems Biophysics, Soft Matter, and Statistical Physics in MIT Physics