Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process
The work
| Authors | Rolf Landauer |
|---|---|
| Editors | |
| Type | article |
| Year | 1961 |
| Citekey | landauer1961irreversibility |
Where it appeared
| Published in | IBM Journal of Research and Development |
|---|---|
| Publisher | IBM |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 183--191 |
Identifiers
| DOI | 10.1147/rd.53.0183 |
|---|---|
| OpenAlex | W4233798822 |
Access
| Landing page | https://doi.org/10.1147/rd.53.0183 |
|---|
Related
| Distinct from | bennett1973logical The claim and the reply. Landauer 1961 argues a logically irreversible operation must dissipate of order kT; Bennett shows any computation can be rearranged to avoid irreversible steps, so the bound constrains forgetting rather than computing. |
|---|---|
| Distinct from | berut2012experimental The bound and its measurement, fifty-one years apart. Landauer 1961 argues that a logically irreversible operation must dissipate of order kT; this paper measures that dissipation with a single colloidal particle in a double-well trap and finds the bound holds. |
Abstract
It is argued that computing machines inevitably involve devices which perform logical functions that do not have a single-valued inverse. This logical irreversibility is associated with physical irreversibility and requires a minimal heat generation, per machine cycle, typically of the order of kT for each irreversible function. This dissipation serves the purpose of standardizing signals and making them independent of their exact logical history. Two simple, but representative, models of bistable devices are subjected to a more detailed analysis of switching kinetics to yield the relationship between speed and energy dissipation, and to estimate the effects of errors induced by thermal fluctuations.
A copy is held
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How it got here
| How it got here | agent via openalex |
|---|---|
| Added | 2026-08-05 00:00 UTC |
| Approved by | a person 2026-08-25 16:36 UTC |
Cite it as
@article{landauer1961irreversibility,
title = {Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process},
author = {Rolf Landauer},
year = {1961},
journal = {IBM Journal of Research and Development},
publisher = {IBM},
volume = {5},
number = {3},
pages = {183--191},
doi = {10.1147/rd.53.0183},
}
This record lives at https://refs.drheap.org/landauer1961irreversibility/ and will keep doing so.