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A Conceptual Device Turning Quantum-Mechanical Interactions into Macroscopically Observable Events
Version 1
: Received: 15 May 2024 / Approved: 16 May 2024 / Online: 16 May 2024 (10:46:04 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Müller, J.G. Elementary Observations: Building Blocks of Physical Information Gain. Entropy 2024, 26, 619. Müller, J.G. Elementary Observations: Building Blocks of Physical Information Gain. Entropy 2024, 26, 619.
Abstract
The paper is concerned with the concept of elementary observations (EO). EOs are experimental answers to the question whether a matter-instrument interaction had taken place at the micro-scale of quantum phenomena. Focusing on the specific case of photon detection, we show that during their lifetimes EOs proceed through the four phases of initiation, detection, erasure and reset. Once generated, the observational value of EOs can be measured in units of the Planck quantum of physical action h=4.136×10^(-15) eVs. Once terminated, each unit of entropy of size k_B=8.617×10^(-5) eV⁄K, which had been created in the instrument during the observational phase, needs to be removed from the instrument to ready it for a new round of photon detection. This withdrawal of entropy takes place at an energetic cost of at least two units of the Landauer minimum energy bound of E_La=ln〖(2) k_B T_D 〗 for each unit of entropy of size k_B.
Keywords
physical measurement; information gain; event generation; physical action; energy dissipation; spacetime extension; Landauer principle
Subject
Physical Sciences, Theoretical Physics
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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