Jerry was sitting down for breakfast one morning when he was astonished to see in the paper an announcment of his own death.
He called his friend at once, "Jim, have you seen the announcement of my death in the paper?"
Jim replied, "Yes, and exactly where are you calling from?"
Rolf William LandauerDied 27 Apr 1999 at age 72 (born 4 Feb 1927).German-born American physicist known for his formulation of Landauer's principle concerning the energy used during a computer's operation. Whenever the machine is resetting for another computation, bits are flushed from the computer's memory, and in that electronic operation, a certain amount of energy is lost. Thus, when information is erased, there is an inevitable "thermodynamic cost of forgetting," which governs the development of more energy-efficient computers. While engineers dealt with practical limitations of compacting ever more circuitry onto tiny chips, Landauer considered the theoretical limit, that if technology improved indefinitely, how soon will it run into the insuperable barriers set by nature?« |
