Amount of information in visible universe quantified

American Institute of Physics

Researchers have long suspected a connection between information and the physical universe, with various paradoxes and thought experiments used to explore how or why information could be encoded in physical matter.

more…

Tau.Neutrino said:

Amount of information in visible universe quantified

American Institute of Physics

Researchers have long suspected a connection between information and the physical universe, with various paradoxes and thought experiments used to explore how or why information could be encoded in physical matter.

more…

Let’s see if I can guess, before reading the answer. Of order 10^60 bits?

> Estimation of the information contained in the visible matter of the universe from https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0064475

Let’s see what they say, from that article:

Davies 10^120 bits.
Wheeler 10^89 bits.
Lloyd 10^90 bits.
Gough 10^87 bits.
Vopson 5*10^94 bits.
Vopson 6*10^80 bits.

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Amount of information in visible universe quantified

American Institute of Physics

Researchers have long suspected a connection between information and the physical universe, with various paradoxes and thought experiments used to explore how or why information could be encoded in physical matter.

more…

Let’s see if I can guess, before reading the answer. Of order 10^60 bits?

> Estimation of the information contained in the visible matter of the universe from https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0064475

Let’s see what they say, from that article:

Davies 10^120 bits.
Wheeler 10^89 bits.
Lloyd 10^90 bits.
Gough 10^87 bits.
Vopson 5*10^94 bits.
Vopson 6*10^80 bits.

So their average is around 10^95 bits. Your educated guess was 10^60 bits.
I’m not sure I’ve seen someones educated guess be out by 10^35 before, and I work with engineers. I think it may be a new record.

Note: I wouldn’t even try to have guessed because I would be the record holder for the universes wrongest guess.