/tech/ - Technology★

It's all about state change. As it is now, a state is associate with an amount of energy and to change the state this energy is transformed into heat.

This, just like everything else, causes a net increase in entropy.

Now, you can never decrease entropy, but you can leave it the same.

That's the idea behind a reversible process:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_process_(thermodynamics)

So to apply this to computing you'd have to return your transistor to its initial state before you change its state.

That's where the problem comes in. Strictly speaking, a reversible process takes an infinite amount of time to reverse. In order to make it feasible you'd have to be able to this at a rate of at least 2 GHz, and that's where you'd have to compromise and still increase the entropy by a little.

dropped at 'it's time to embrace'

fucking popsci trash

>>805049

Transistors only have an off state and on state, do they not? Would returning a transistor to its original state before changing states not dissipate twice as much heat? This is the bit that doesn't make sense to me.

>>805054

He's right tho, family. Heat is the reason you don't see stock 6GHz CPUs.

>>805059

It depends how you do it.

If the process is "adiabatic" (as described in the article) you don't transfer any heat out of the system.