🚀 go-pugleaf

Tom Schneider (toms@kaylor.ncifcrf.gov) wrote:
: meserve (meserve@hal.COM) wrote:

: : Is it possible to draw an equally direct
: : equivalence relation between energy and information?

: Who was Felker?  Did he
: publish this?  If so, where and when?  Is I. G. Wilson still around?

Felker, according to the American Men of Science 10th ed was at Bell Labs.
The IEEE membership Directory gives more information.  I found:

@article{Felker1952,
author = "J. H. Felker",
title = "A Link Between Information and Energy",
journal = "Proc. IRE",
volume = "40",    
pages = "728-729",
year = "1952"}

It was Felker who first wrote (C/P)ub = (1/kT) log2 e.
Amusingly, Adler, in attempting to object to this in

@article{Adler1954,
author = "F. P. Adler",
title = "on ``Figure of Merit
for Communication Devices",
journal = "Proc. IRE",  
volume = "?",
pages = "1191",
year = "1954"}

Seems to be the first to simplify it to
   Emin = KT ln 2 joules per bit
Most authors after that managed to mangle the equation
and lose the statement of units.  Also amusing is that he
chose the same notation (ie, Emin) as I did many years later.

This is a fun rebuttal:

@article{Felker1954,
author = "J. H. Felker",
title = "Rebuttal to Comments on ``Figure of Merit
for Communication Devices",
journal = "Proc. IRE",  
volume = "?",
pages = "1191",
year = "1954"}

  Tom Schneider
  National Cancer Institute
  Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
  Frederick, Maryland  21702-1201
  toms@ncifcrf.gov
  http://www-lmmb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/