Paul Sen’s book Einstein’s Fridge, on the history of thermodynamics, is brilliant and fascinating and full of insight. This is possibly my favourite new snippet of information, appropriately enough from the final chapter on information thery and how the study of computer bits relates to thermodynamics.
“An E coli uses 10,000 times less energy to process a bit of information than the transistors used in most human-built information processing devices”
@helenczerski Thanks to you and @sellathechemist for the recommendation, based on which I’ve just read it. It is indeed brilliant. Clear explanations. Fascinating to know more about the people whose names are familiar from various laws, and to understand how their interactions personally and through the forum of scientific literature led to our state of knowledge.
@helenczerski That is not only fascinating, an e. coli based computer is also an invitation to a lot of stupid jokes about shitty systems, core dumbs, etc.
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