What is Physical Information?

[@rebeccalopez2997]

Finally science videos made for people with borderline personality disorder.

[@georgewashington3164]

what happens when a couple of particle and antiparticle emerges right on the borderline?

[@zombieregime]

@@georgewashington3164 one falls into the singularity envalope negating a bit of anti-itself, the other wanders the universe until it too is negated.

[@instantreels1363]

@@zombieregime u will block diagram illustrating an 🙏❤️🙏❤️ ui be 🙏❤️🙏❤️❤️ kkkkkoooo9oooooo9kokoo9😂oouj🎉oooooooôiiiiiiiiiiiil🎉🎉 in it 😂😂😂😂😂

[@rossfriedman6570]

Wut

[@wideeyewanderer1785]

This channel is so underrated. I was struggling with this thought as well. Also, you are too funny my friend 😂

[@SOULAANI_]

I o

[@frankyjayhay]

5:05 is highly instructive, "If we both send a signal at the same time..." good to hear a proper physicist saying it. A 'universal now' is still embedded in our thinking so we ARE allowed to talk about a light pulse 4 light years away being emitted at the same time as ours although of course we can't cause it to happen or even know about it for 4 years. Same as we say distant stars we're currently seeing have probably exploded by 'now' as if there's a universal 'now'. I think there's big confusion in relativity over the concept of reality: an actual event vs the way it appears due to information traveling at the speed of light. Einstein says reality is what you measure, not what you think ought to be, ie they're one and the same thing. It would be great if you could do an in-depth video on the subject of reality.

[@jasonspades5628]

Your videos are built the way people naturally think. Its impressive

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thanks! 😊

[@saitaro]

One of my favorite channels on science. Very high quality content!

[@cleitonoliveira932]

Agreed.

[@Geo07ism]

Does the morse code at the end mean "hello world"?

[@ScienceAsylum]

+Geo07ism Yep! Well done!

[@georgejo7905]

should be "what hath god wrought" the original hello world at least electronically

[@aravindtr1331]

This man should have more subscribers than even pew die pie. Really, his content has very good quality. One of the best science channels in whole of youtube

[@Miguel_Noether]

Among a lot youtube science channels, you did a very interesting look back in physics timeline, particularly information; relating mechanics, relativity, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, all of them related by the concept of information. You should make more videos like this, relating more branches of physics, energy for example is another concept that binds them together. You made physic's history interesting by jumping forward and backward. (y)

[@ScienceAsylum]

I'm glad you liked it. I try to do that when I can and I have a video coming up in the next couple months with a little history in it.

[@NatureFreak1127]

Yes! It was fascinating. I wish i was taught physics like this.

[@marleneoliviaruelas2169]

"Brilliant"

[@osmium6832]

@@ScienceAsylum Small error in the video: at 7:15 you say 1877 but put Boltzmann & Gibbs at the 1887 mark on the timeline. I looked it up and the 1877 date is the correct one. Rather than entropy being defined roughly halfway along the timeline between the speed of light being constant and special relativity, it was more like 1/4 of the way.

[@lovetingoyenda9077]

I'm pretending I understand all of it, but deep down I'm more confused now that I was before watching this video.

[@cesarsosa4617]

You lost information after the interaction with this video

[@gumunduringigumundsson9344]

I forgot I watched it 15 minutes ago... and I do remember causality is the "real" speed limit. But what I do not understand fully and completely is everything. Wtf is going on and where did it come from and.. and I feel like the guy "forced masure" or whatever the ex hippy world conqueror in potentia cuz he could take over anyones body. Where he is questioning Dirk gently and the hand eating hobbit bellboy.. and is sooooo confused and just rants out questions in total bewilderment and awe. LOL. Crayyyyzee haha!🍻

[@thekinghass]

That mean you’re learning

[@NatureFreak1127]

I think i understand it, which makes ne suspicious i don't understand it at all.

[@dennistucker1153]

I agree, after watching this video I am even more confused on this subject.

[@Trp44]

Nick you r brilliant...👍👍👍👨‍🎨🥁what comes across so well in your videos is commitment to your theories, and your humor ... the mix between the two makes you magic. big fan. Don't stop talking please.

[@u0000-u2x]

took 6 years for this information to get to me, but I'm happy it finally arrived. subbed.

[@amandeep9930]

I just finished studying the concept of entropy of a random variable and opened KZbin to saw the definition in you video? Great video as usual.

[@markkennedy9767]

Just subscribed to your channel. I love your approach. From the historical stuff to the philosophy and context. But also your enthusiasm and understanding of it. All done with appropriate irreverence

[@collinwadham6582]

The best question for me is..."What causes the information"? Why is it there? What/who told it to do these "things" to us? And why? Oh...and by the way...you are fantastic. Keep up this BRILLIANT work.

[@adamevil550]

This is literally the best science channel ever!

[@PompiisGarage]

I normally watch vids at 1.25 or 1.5 speed and just realized there is no slower speed than 1. Outstanding content! I'll need to watch this again.

[@ScienceAsylum]

I also watch a lot of videos at 1.25 to 1.5 speed. Many just go too slow and it saved a lot of time in the long run.

[@jjjccc728]

You can watch his videos at less than 1. I watch some of them at 3/4 speed.

[@marsattacks6998]

Hey there. Love the channel. Once upon a time I was an evolutionary biologist and my mentor wrote a book about Evolution as Entropy. Could you perhaps do a video explaining this a little better ? Sort of a merging of biology and the 2nd law of thermodynamics? It could be quite valuable to the general community as it is often a bone of contention in debates. Keep up the great work!

[@ScienceAsylum]

I do have a couple videos on entropy, but I like the idea of connecting it to biology. I'll keep this in mind.

[@itskelvinn]

You deserve so many more videos. I love the explanation of speed of light is speed of causality/information. Thanks nick

[@itskelvinn]

Many more views *

[@ScienceAsylum]

+PapaKay Glad you liked it!

[@krpcannon123]

The historical development of ideas is what is sorely missed from my actual physics lectures. I have sometimes wondered why physics cannot be taught more like a humanities course, where in lecture we look back to the original papers and piece things together...

[@admiralhyperspace0015]

This is one of your timeless videos Nick.

[@kquat7899]

Another excellent video. This channel is one of the best for real insight and clarity.

[@hasanshirazi9535]

Information is never lost it can just become more random or complicated as its entropy increases. Even for objects falling into the Black Hole information is not lost. This is the result of great debate between Hawking and Susskind.

[@ankushanni2323]

Man u cleared up so many doubts through your videos I absolutely love this guy super fun to be around wish I was like that too!

[@ernestolombardo5811]

Ok, now that was one wild ride of a video, I'm gonna have to watch it again after I've digested what I was able to grasp on this first pass.

[@jobdijkstra1422]

Damn Those 1 frame pictures tho

[@jacoblampmatthiessen9862]

Job Yep!! I have ADHD and every time that frame came, I completely lost track of both nick's argument and my own inner mental physics thoughts and diagrams...

[@k7iq]

What was with "HILLO WORLE" in Morse code at the end ? Thought it was going to say Hello world.

[@WarrenGarabrandt]

@@k7iqThe message was …. (H) . (E) .-.. (L) .-.. (L) --- (O) .-- (W) --- (O) .-. (R) .-.. (L) -.. (D)

[@billpotter9716]

Yeah. I find myself going back to look at them, as my short life ebbs away. Help me God.

[@Laughing_Cat_Meme]

I thought my phone is hacked 😑

[@rebanelson607]

"Mixedupness" is certainly increasing. No doubt about it. Excellent presentation!

[@AbhijitaB]

1. So if there are things that are traveling faster than the speed of light, will we never know? Because we will not be able to detect the information coming from them? 2. What about Tachyons? CERN says it travels faster than light? How did they measure that? 3. Also, I am having a hard time digesting the fact that the speed of light is same for all observers in all reference frames. How would you explain the following scenario? - You start running against the direction of a light beam that was fired towards you. Wouldn't you see light traveling faster than c? I mean yes, the information coming from that light beam will have a constant speed but won't that information reach me faster if I am running towards it?

[@ScienceAsylum]

+Abhijit Ghogre 1+2) As far as we know, there is nothing that travels faster than light. Tachyons have never been observed. If they ARE real, it's likely that we'll never interact with them so we'll never know they're there. 3) No, you would always see it travel at "c" no matter what. Length contraction and time dilation adjust for the change in speed you're expecting to be there so it doesn't change at all.

[@mindsetrader]

Thanks for featuring my bro in your video Love from India🙏

[@MelloCello7]

Oh you've really outdone yourself with this one...

[@whoeveriam0iam14222]

9:15 oh no Nick is hacking us all it's interesting that way after my death my gravity will reach Andromeda for however long I am alive. I know gravity doesn't really care about my mass being "alive" but I do.. and as long as I'm alive it is MY gravity =D

[@igehring]

whoeveriam0iam14222 interesting, never seen this way

[@heywrandom8924]

Well technically your mass would be conserved anyway just spread around the ecosystem of the world. Also as most of your cells renew throughout life you can't define your matter as you. Indeed, most if not all your cells have been renewed since you were born. There is maybe an exception to your memory cells but I don't know.

[@frankx8739]

I'd like to weigh in. Imagine your gravestone, (which has been left for centuries because of a nuclear war or something), imagine your name on the inscription slowly fading until there is no possible way of reading it anymore. Your name is lost forever. The same goes for your body: as you age, more and more parts of it are unable to remember how to function properly: due to entropy the DNA software loses more and more data (information), until a point is reached called 'cascade collapse' This can be illustrated by an old building reaching a point where it finally caves in. When this collapse happens in your body, it is called death. Then entropy REALLY begins to take over until your body is eventually indistinguishable from topsoil, and the last bit of information about who you once were is lost forever.

[@KyleMonizMusic]

You are doing super good man. Super funny and information is easy to understand

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thanks!

[@Andrew-ep4kw]

"it's okay to be a little crazy" Yeah, I don't know how you can spend so much time talking about this stuff and not go completely nuts.

[@AI7KTD]

I'm nitpicking here, but what you said at 6:38 isn't entirely accurate! The JPG image does not contain the same amount of information as the PNG and BMP counterparts! JPEG uses a lossy compression method where only a subset of the spacial frequencies present in the image are retained and most of the high frequency spacial information is discarded. PNG on the other hand uses LZW which simply put you can think of as factoring repeating bit patterns, which is lossless and can be expanded to the original string of bits later.

[@BroadcaststoNowhere]

Your right, but he is referencing the human perspective. Our eyes can not appreciate the informational differences (in most cases and if so its very subtle). This is my problem with science, it always views things (almost entirely and only) from one perspective, the human perspective. By doing so we only capture a portion of truth.

[@AI7KTD]

@@BroadcaststoNowhere I would disagree, especially since the topic of conversation is on information and entropy not human perception.

[@BroadcaststoNowhere]

@@AI7KTD I do see your point.

[@dirtygarageguy]

Love the ghostbusters reference!

[@altortugas5979]

Mass hysteria!

[@chrisliffrig5603]

Good info, thanks. But it's increasingly evident that I'm going to need a bigger central nervous processing unit.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Information entropy is not only incredibly similar to physical entropy, it is the same thing. Just described in a different way. More specifically, physical entropy is information that is lost, has become unknown, is no longer useable. While in computer science and communication, the smallest unit of information is the bit (binary digit), physicists prefer the natural logarithm, measuring information in nits. But the thing that is measured is the same thing. There is an equivalence between energy and information (which depends on temperature, so there is the gradient required for energy).

[@ramilnavarro9940]

I'm genuinely mind blown by this. Especially of the thought of a particle that hasn't interacted with anything yet

[@cristinaalexe7454]

You're so good at explaining, thank you for making these videos!

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thanks! 🤓

[@guitarislife01]

Nick is so smart, and he and his team are probably getting even smarter making these videos

[@ScienceAsylum]

Unless you're talking about my clones, I don't have a team. It's all me. (Although, to really answer your comment, yes I do learn stuff making these videos.)

[@konozbinrashid7774]

Hey Nick. Make a series of videos on electronics too which includes the components of logic gates and some logic circuits too because getting that explained from you would be EXTREMELY CRAZY & AWESOME!! Anyways man you're SUPERB and thank you for conveying all the INFORMATION!!!

[@Youcanscienceit]

Fantastic job on this one! Also excellent pronunciation of Huygens. as to your last dea about the physical universe being made up of information (paraphrasing) you should look up Max Tegmark. Normally he writes papers about data processing of radio data (he processed the CMB map) but he has a book and a couple papers which are about the philosophical notion that reality is a particular mathematical construct.

[@ScienceAsylum]

+YouCanScienceIt I'll definitely look him up. Thanks!

[@grideffect1193]

Great timing. Really entertaining and I appreciate the work you put into producing your channel. learning something new. Thanks.

[@QDWhite]

1:38 although I see what you mean, I'd be careful saying "Relativity says all reference frames are on equal footing". Relativity only grants that inertial frames are on equal footing. Kinematics allow you to transform between any reference frame at your convenience, but only inertial frames are invariant under the transformation.

[@ScienceAsylum]

I don't mean to imply that all frames of reference are the same, just that no one frame is given more _importance_ over any other (regardless of type). Yes, you can tell the difference between inertial and non-inertial frames. However, someone in a non-inertial frame is just as correct to say they are stationary as someone in an inertial frame. We don't give inertial frames "more correctness." If you do that, you miss the point of relativity entirely.

[@QDWhite]

@@ScienceAsylum fair enough.

[@MrDhc82]

As entropy grows, information is not lost. It is diluted with more information and becomes inaccesible, but it is never lost.

[@noahzaeshorts1402]

For awhile now I've been working over the idea that there is a form of information fundamental to the universe. For example, the equations we use to describe certain definite "things", say a moving object, are just descriptions. They are symbolic representations of value. I propose that the value represented is independent of the representation. That is to say, this particular form of "information" exists independent of human observation and is therefore fundamental to the structure of the universe. What do you think fellow humans?

[@ScienceAsylum]

+Noah Hayden Technically, not even quantum physics requires human observation... but it does go the other way and say that, if it's impossible to MEASURE a certain piece of information, then the particle doesn't even HAVE that information.

[@parthkothari7868]

Why didn't I find this channel sooner. Love the content!

[@Johncornwell103]

Man Galileo was truly head of his time. Dude literally almost discovered relativity hundreds of years before Einstein

[@dantrivates9466]

@The Science Asylum I did the math - for a distant object to appear to be moving faster than light as a result of Earth's rotation, it would have to be almost as far away as Neptune (at opposition). Neptune is the nearest superluminal object to our observation. v=ωr, r = v/ω, r = c/(one day in radians per second) = 3.8 light hours

[@ScienceAsylum]

r = c * T / (2 pi) = c * 24 hours / (2 pi) = 3.8 light hours... CONFIRMED! Almost to Neptune's orbit... It never occurred to me the problem could be that close.

[@dantrivates9466]

I was actually surprised it was that far... now here's an interesting idea - what happens inside a star if a certain layer is rotating fast enough that its outermost layer appears to be superluminal? Btw, I edited original comment as you are right, Neptune is the closest superluminal object, not Pluto

[@ericklopes4046]

This could get even closer. If you manage to project a shadow of your finger on the Moon surface (if you're standing on Earth's surface) and just shake it, you've got a shadow traveling faster than light right on the Moon's surface.

[@gobi2792]

WHY YOU HAVE ONLY AROUND 150K YOUR EXPLANATION IS SO GOOD YOU SHOULD HAVE 4 M SUB😍😍

[@marcojimenez2725]

I spin and see that the entire universe move faster than light xD

[@joerosati5017]

You make great videos man, keep up the good work!

[@apapaso]

HELLO TO YOU TOO

[@ankokuraven]

So, one way I've heard it explained is that the information isn't fading or lost, it's becoming noise. The complexity of the information is actually growing but our ability to track it or get anything meaningful out of it decreases. Random static on your computer has more information than a neat organized pattern, it's just less useful to us.

[@xhelloselm]

I've been quite convinced for a while now that your last sentence is actually true. I don't see any good reason to distinguish between "physical" information and meaning, or information "we made up". We've never experienced anything but the information we made up.

[@muriloteixeiradasilvasanto1571]

The best crazy chanel on KZbin

[@americanborn6768]

Those beeps at the end: Nick sent a message to his homeworld of CraziLucid

[@NoNamedOne]

we are not loosing information. Information is always there if there is energy and mass/matter. if you combine those two youll get information transmission through time and space. Basically information is ever changing property of quantum but never equal to null, it can be delivered, transmitted and changed but it changes other entity who is in interaction with quantum. So it is never lost, its just traveling until there is energy and mass. Even if there is no receiver, information exist waiting to be measured and decompressed.

[@ryangunnison38]

I think information is definitely reducing/decaying. Its a personal opinion but I like to think of information as the fabric of our reality. At the end of the universe, information will be warped and standardized. If a particle is a projection of its information, and that particle is in its highest state of decay, than the information is at its highest state as well. (Evenly entirely inert?)

[@TheDummbob]

Correct me if im wrong, but isn't a high entropy state also a state of high information? As in: you need much information to describe that state. A low entropy state (e.g. all particles are in the upper right corner of a box) needs less information to describe. Ok now that i think of it, i guess you could differentiate between the information We have, and the information thats hidden in the system (that the system has). Low entropy does then mean that we have lots of information, and therefore only a little bit is left hidden in the system. Either way, doesn't seem to me that information is getting lost really, just the information we as observers can have about a system dilutes over time. But the properties of the physical world (its information) only mix up, but don't get lost Anyways, nice videos, keep up the good work, i enjoy it! :)

[@stigrynning]

At 01:28: "You could say something like: But Betelgeuse didn’t really move in that 6 hours. The Earth just rotated. And you’d be right, but so is the person that says Betelgeuse moved. Remember, relativity says all perspectives are on equal footing. Neither one of these perspectives is wrong." Does relativity really say that about apparent movement caused by the observer turning his head or that the Earth rotates?

[@ScienceAsylum]

It does. That's why relativity is so weird. When you turn your head, you're turning your frame of reference.

[@MikinessAnalog]

@@ScienceAsylum I saw a video about a hypothetical laser shining from Earth to the moon back and forth. The light doesn't just instantly sweep across it but instead makes a curves during the 2 seconds it took to get there. Hence it looked like a line of single dot photons across the moons surface.

[@rodrigoappendino]

6:40 What's the difference between information and data? I didn't understand yet.

[@bradkemble]

Physical information is stored on waves as waves, this can be spun into matter or released to create forces. It is all information and it is always increasing in time. Our information can be lived and then sent out in waves that hold that information even entering a black hole it can just be re-spun into matter and stores that information that can now be released with new waves to imprint on them.

[@jeffwells1255]

I'm sure you mentioned somewhere that the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light if you go out far enough, and it would have been useful here perhaps despite the risk of blowing a few extra minds. This puzzled me for years before someone explained that it's space itself that is expanding, and as Lawrence Krauss pointed out, "space can do whatever it wants." Light speed is the (actually unattainable) maximum only for massive things traveling *through* space!

[@ScienceAsylum]

Well, when someones says “space expands faster than light,” that’s a over simplification. We don’t really measure the expansion as a speed.

[@jeffwells1255]

@@ScienceAsylum How do you measure it then, apart from the Hubble Constant? I'm seriously interested in this as a lifelong student of physics (if not at a professional level) who can handle at least some of the math.

[@friendlynomad9840]

You got me with "...dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!"

[@ScienceAsylum]

😆

[@therivalyn195]

The relative distance an object 'appears to travel' does not include you (or the Earth) rotating as far as Special Relativity is concerned. Only the red shifting would be taken as a measure of it's relative velocity to us or motion across the sky independent of the Earths rotation around it's axis or the sun (which is trivial).

[@ianbridges3318]

According to Len Susskind (if I’ve understood him correctly) information is conserved not lost as you suggest, but our ability to track it lessens as a system evolves and the phase space gets more complex... what do you think?

[@ScienceAsylum]

Well... 1) You shouldn't confuse "information" with "quantum information." It's quantum information that should be conserved. Classical information gets lost/created all the time. 2) Leonard Susskind's ideas about the holographic principle are still a bit controversial.

[@ianbridges3318]

The Science Asylum maybe a video clarifying the difference between classical and quantum information? Personally I struggle with the no information loss/ time reversibility idea in complex systems - don’t the same uncertainty and probability principles still apply so the original state is only one of many possible outcomes? Agree about the holographic universe.

[@waffenbunny7830]

Classical information is then really meaningless then. States dont become senile about their properties as entropy increases. If physical information can be lost, then “physical” isnt a very reasonable describer. Physical means “stuff” like matter and energy are “stuff” and dont disappear. The only meaningful type of information is one that undergoes the sausage effect. If your sausage does not bulge in other places when you squeeze it, then you dont have a sausage.

[@midn1ghtm4dnezs]

Wow so this is the first video i commented on ....or maybe the second.....but wow..... Im honestly impressed ...... This is something i think about deeply....... solid facts are great.....well done....

[@kj4242]

This is a great video. My mind is blown and I will not be able to return from state of crazy it created.

[@SGRmoss]

The sublimal Beetlejuice is the greatest thing to happen in any youtube video ever! Thank you!

[@baqirhussein1109]

I learned from you more than what i learn at school 🏫

[@doclee8755]

I have a question I hope you can answer, or perhaps a discussion that can begin others to think on this topic. As a molecular biologist, I have often wondered about other ways to categorize genes and other genetic elements. When I was an undergrad student I took a course in physics and the professor, who happened to the department chair, was trying to recruit students to their department. He came to each student, asked their major and why. When he came to me I told him I know several biologists in my family know they are limited in work and research, such marine biology as one cousin is. I said I wanted to get to the “bottom” of how things work biologically, so I am majoring in molecular biology and biochemistry. And I’ll never forget what he said...he said, “if you’re really interested in how things work...the only education that will satisfy that is physics. He said to me, “you may know how a gene works and functions in a macro or biological level, but a physicist can tell you why that molecular exists and how and why it will interact with others. He said “molecular biology is the bottom rung on your your biology ladder...but physics is the ground your ladder rests upon!” And since then, answers don’t satisfy me like they used to. I’ve seen the universe completely different in only the last week since I found your videos than my whole life before. Now back to my original question. Since genes are a collection of other specific molecules in a spec fixed arrangement, what about the energies of each nucleotide? Or more collectively, each gene. In molecular biology, the term “information” is often thrown around loosely. But my question is this: could energy and information “be” something? I mean, the specific genes affect the genes linear sequence. Those positions affect the three dimensional confirmation of the enzymes and proteins, very specifically it’s 3D structure. But with time and energy along with information, would you say genes, as collections of various nucleotides (DNA / RNA) are also specific energies? Forgive me if I am not expressing this clearly, but I am asking, like our minds have thoughts and knowledge, using specialized cells called neurons, they seem to carry information. But could it be said if genes, those specific sequential combinations of codons-proteins, each of those could also be unique information “bundles?” Well, hopefully you’ll be able to follow where I was going or trying to. I’ll explain further if you reply. Thank you. Lee

[@ScienceAsylum]

It's difficult to know _for sure,_ but from what we can tell: Energy is just clever bookkeeping. It's just a number that has some useful mathematical patterns. I try to give it some physical meaning in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZ_NYqp4qdNpf5o but it is _not_ some kind of tangible substance. It's just a useful property of things.

[@LeeCarlson]

Amit Goswami has some interesting things to say that I believe directly address this question.

[@outsider344]

I think KZbin hates you. I am subscribed to the channel, have left a thumbs up on nearly all of your videos, and somehow your new videos don`t show up as suggestions when they come out. I feel like this is hurting your growth. You have over 6000 subscribers but sometimes a per video view count of less than a 10th that. I have also never seen your videos in the side bar as recommended videos when I am watching videos by other creators on the same topic. You make great videos and its a shame the view count doesn't reflect that.

[@ScienceAsylum]

+outsider344 Thanks! The more time goes on, the harder and harder it is to get noticed. That KZbin algorithm really hates the little guy. I know from my analytics though that my videos DO go to SOME people's recommended box.

[@locutusdborg126]

That is KZbin entropy for you. Heat death of views is coming this way.

[@waynelast1685]

I noticed same for other science videos. But KZbin shows me all kinds of garbage viral videos though.

[@rauhamanilainen6271]

Well at least he has nearly 400,000 subscribers today.

[@medusaskull1604]

I always found your video entertaining and educational. Thanks.

[@anthonynicolas577]

This man is an absolute fukin legend. also Really appreciate the beetlejuice /بيت الجوزاء bit. The amount of information and clarity u squeeze in these videos is amazing man.

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thanks! 🤓

[@withernator]

5:41 okay but what about alchubiere drives?

[@JohnStephenWeck]

Greetings all. Information is the structure of the universe. It’s exists everywhere you find any structure in space-time. As far as I know, there is no “non-physical information” (unless this means software). The hardware of any system is made of structure (information) arranging physics particles into the any macro structures we see. Even the particles contain information. Information looks like the most fundamental substance I’ve ever seen. To summarize, the structure of our universe (information) is a fundamental part of our universe (this includes all time as well). Structure (information) is as real and physical as you get. There are lots of things that only make sense if you view them from an structure (information) perspective... Complexity - the amount of structure (information) in a system. Order - the density of structure (information) in a system. Communications - using machines to move information (bits of structure) around. Memory systems - structure (information) storage machines. Software - structure (information) stored in a memory system. Software provides its own separate levels of organization. bodies - the hardware information that defines your body structure. Minds - software control systems that do problem solving (act intelligently). Genomes - a cellular software manager, that does things like cellular construction and maintenance. Software universes - universes made of software (like a book, most games, The Matrix movie, mathematics, etc.). Reality - perception, a structural (informational) connection (sensors and effectors) between a mind and a universe (optionally software). Thanks for listening. ;)

[@leebrownell9321]

Hi. Love your videos. I know this is two years old or so (closer to three), but i just watched it and I had a wonder. I am not a physicist, just a thinker. As the universe keeps expanding, you said that entropy grows and more entropy is more information. I wonder if you go backwards towards the big bang. As that approaches entropy would be less(?) and therefore information would be less(?) At the singularity, then, would there be no information? Is that why we can't know anything about before that time?

[@mattlegge8538]

I think as always the answer will be 'yes, but actually no.'

[@Verschlungen]

Atypically, Nick is "Not even wrong" on this one. At 6:10 he shows the top half of the first page of Shannon's landmark 1948 paper. That's a nice touch; HOWEVER, in the lower half of that same page (not shown) Shannon issues a caveat: "Frequently the messages [under analysis in this paper] have meaning [...] These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem." It is tragic that Shannon did not simply say this: "My work with data communication mathematics has nothing to do with information; in fact, there is [as yet] no such thing as 'information theory' ." After all, that's exactly what he meant. What his paper concerns is data-encoding richness and error correction, not information. But how could he have anticipated that journalists, in search of a sexy synonym for 'the mathematics of data communication encoding methods' would coin the term 'information theory' to the world in the 1950s, and keep pimping it ever since, so very successfully at that? A simple example clarifies the difference between data and information: The letters y-e-s are three pieces of data. The word "yes" spoken by a dictator to his top general is information -- the information that might be the start of a genocide campaign: "Yes, I want you to exterminate them." Or, if spoken by a wife to her husband, that same word "yes" might convey, in abbreviated form, this information instead, based on context: "Yes, buy bananas." Information has to do with things like committing genocide versus buying bananas; data has to do with strings such as y-e-s versus y-e-q -- the latter being an unsuccessful attempt to transmit y-e-s. Physicists routinely talk in complete ignorance of what data and information are. For the general public not to understand the data/information distinction is forgivable. But I find it annoying to see how physicists always skip over this question of defining to the two terms, and immediately start pontificating about 'information theory' (there is no such thing) and 'physical information' (there is no such thing), apparently on the basis that "We physicists are smarter than others, so we don't need to pause to ask what data and information are; even dummies know what what those words mean, so of course we physicists automatically know what they mean and won't waste time defining them; they're both kinda the same thing anyway, aren't they?" (I believe it was Susskind who said something along those lines in a Q&A after one of his lectures: "Well, it seems to me that the two words are more or less interchangeable." Whereas, if anything, the two words are more like opposites than synonyms, as understood by those of us who actually deal with data processing on a daily basis.) I don't deny that physicists ARE smarter than the rest of us (and I love most of Nick's videos ), but dammit, why can't the physicists wake up about this one very important subject and stop promulgating 'information' nonsense? I expected better from Nick, since usually he seems quite aware of any such quirk or foible or sloppiness in Establishment Physics (as shown in his very nice video on "Why the earth keeps rotating" for instance, which is a nice example of his usual style).

[@eugeneplay9416]

Great explanation, as always. I must admit the idea of information as physicists talk about it has always been more of a puzzle to me than quantum physics itself, which I am starting to get a handle on. Could you do a video on why physicists get so wrapped up on information? Why do they care so much that they have to have equations and such. Surely understanding quantum systems is far more like physics. I have a computer science background, and I totally get why IT people are hot on information, since that is what IT is all about. But why do physicists care about it so much?

[@ScienceAsylum]

I've been working on a series about the "black hole information paradox" for a while. I'm not sure when it will be done though.

[@mandisaplaylist]

6.40 "Media.jpg" typically has LESS information than the other two. That is what the "lossy" means in the name of "lossy compression format". It still does have the information we care about though.

[@itsscience8115]

Amazing video and information Those 4. 1 frame pictures though

[@P0LARice]

6:05 if you are looking for the information being expressed while Nick is busy on his phone.

[@ArDiaN_Music]

I know this is a 6 years old video, but I just want to say that the Morse code at the end says "Hello world". I look in the comments and didn't find anyone mention that. Great video as always. Cheers!

[@saswatsarangi6669]

At 4:22 you said Einstein didn't agree with expansion but I had heard several times Dr Michio Kaku saying Einstein had said that universe expanding and not rotating. You can check some. I don't remember the video names now

[@ScienceAsylum]

Einstein did everything he could to make general relativity describe a static (non-expanding) universe, but he could never get it to work. When Hubble finally came out with evidence of the expansion, Einstein finally gave up and accepted the truth.

[@saswatsarangi6669]

The Science Asylum thanks for the reply but I'm not sure, because Dr Michio Kaku never mentioned it. Not that I'm calling you a liar, don't mind man, I love your videos, I'm kind of crazy too

[@ScienceAsylum]

I'm not saying Kaku is wrong. Sometimes it's just not a relevant piece of history when an educator is trying to explain things. Google "Einstein's biggest blunder" and you might find some info on it.

[@saswatsarangi6669]

The Science Asylum you're replying the one in video or someone else?😬

[@behindblueyes83sm]

I thoroughly enjoy your videos. Keep em coming

[@glutinousmaximus]

Scientific uses of the word "Information" can be quite confusing. For instance, Hawking argued that all information on things passing the event horizon was 'lost' forever. But Leonard Susskind and others disagreed. Quite a bust up! Another is entropy, which has been described as the _slow loss of information_ contained in the universe over time. Lots of fun in physics :0)

[@sobertillnoon]

When Newton said light travels in an instant which is wrong. But from the photon's prospective it is an instant - no time passes for the photon.

[@ajcaldeira8590]

Is there anything stopping "information" from being "knowledge" of how atoms connect? Bell's Theorem shows that information can be passed instantaneously between entangled particles and I'm curious about what that might entail. I know we measure spins states to understand that information has passed, but am curious about what other information might be exchanged. Say carbon-based life has started somewhere in the galaxy and a particle interacts with that life and becomes entangled. If it were to continue out into the galaxy, would that make it any easier for carbon-based life to form in other parts of the galaxy/universe? Thanks!

[@ScienceAsylum]

Lots of people asking about quantum entanglement. Grossly misunderstood idea. Video coming in the next few months.

[@locutusdborg126]

Entanglement does NOT transmit information. If we cause one particle to be spin up, we know the other particle is spin down, so information has not been transmitted.

[@juanc.6335]

'Another widely misused concept is that of information. Information is a concept associated with the transmission of signals that codify some statements in some language. It is not a thing, it has no energy, and it has no independent existence. It is a semantic concept with the ontological status of a fiction, and in particular there is no such a thing as a "law of conservation of information" as stated by some authors.'

[@ScienceAsylum]

If you watched the entire video, you'll know that I stated something similar: 7:55 "But we need to be careful comparing data information and physical information. Data is something humans made up. The physical world is not."

[@pushkars4199]

What about quantum entanglement? Information travels faster than speed of light between two entangled particles. How would you explain this?

[@shrimpflea]

No it doesn't...there is no information transmitted in entanglement. The 2 "particles" are actually waves that are always connected in space-time.

[@midnightson787]

That clock in the background is amazing

[@protestant6258]

In 6:30, the more data and the 3 things it would causing, is it becoz of inertia?

[@merwindor]

Talking about the speed of light and the expansion of the universe makes me grumpy that we only have star charts of where things were and not where things ARE. I guess that we would have fun trying to plot a course to Andromeda.

[@BassBaseAce]

The bit about the universe expanding, a concept I'm familiar with if not the math or history behind it, got me to thinking. Could it be possible for the universe (in this example the place containing all physical information) to divide, say in a manner akin to a cell dividing within an organism? If so, would both halves be able to continue on independent of each other? Could this be an example possibly of something like the multi-universe theory? As an additional aside, if information is not matter or energy, where does it exist? Does it occupy a physical space?

[@ScienceAsylum]

+BassBaseAce The short answer to your first question is "yes." If the universe's expansion accelerates fast enough, our observable part of it will become a very dark very lonely place. Although, I wouldn't take your cell division analogy any further than that. If information isn't matter or energy, it has to be more fundamental than physical space because causality DEFINES time.

[@BassBaseAce]

+The Science Asylum well the concern I was fielding was also trying to reference the idea of multiple dimensions, not parallel worlds but breadth length height time, etc. up to 10 or 11 dimensions to my knowledge*. But could there essentially be a physical split between those universes that (aside from drastic distances that make conventional travel unrealistic, if not impossible depending on relative velocities) could only be traversed via something that moves in a higher dimension than 3 and 4? Though this also leads into a much older concept of whether or not the space holding the universe is somehow finite and if not then could there essentially be other quasi-universes somewhere in the void of space or would one just go on indefinitely into nothingness, or could it still be out there without us having knowledge of it? Further could the universe be thought as having a shape somehow, if it is finite or not? *Which could be an interesting video idea, namely the number of dimensions and potential physical repercussions of such.

[@ScienceAsylum]

+BassBaseAce This is actually a very good video idea... which is why it's been on my list for a while now :-) The topic needs some more time in my head before I do a video on it.

[@locutusdborg126]

Information is like math, it was invented by humans and is descriptive: it describes the properties of particles and interactions. But the debate about whether math was discovered or invented goes on, and likely so does that of information. I fall into the human invention category. They are like colors, humans inventions, labels, to describe visible wavelengths.

[@RenatoOC91]

great video man! keep it up! i usually get tired with longer videos, but that was really good. Maybe a little too much "information" (hahaha, but seriously.)

[@ScienceAsylum]

+Renato Oliveira I think it needed more clones.

[@ionmihai8168]

Mulțumim!

[@aidennwitz]

In my language (Polish) we pronounce betelgeuse something like "beth el getha" (betelgeza), so it's a bit more similar to the intended pronunciation. Props for the meta screen.

[@romanovrex]

Ok,here goes... Information can only be created and scrambled, but never destroyed. Eg: someone draws a line in the sand on a beach near the waterline at low tide. The line has a particular shape, but it is not important what. As the tide comes in the line will appear to be washed away, but this isn't the actual case. The situation and position of sand partials on the beach will always contain this line but in a scrambled form. In fact it is inevitable that the influence of this line will spread special over time.