What do physicists mean when they say “information cannot be destroyed”?
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Physucists term information is way different compared to your daily used one.
They are not talking about something wroten in the book cannot be destroyed. However the act of writing in the book has bilion of bilion consequences (causing various energy redistributions). With enough knowledge even after million years it can be possible to track every trace back and copy every hand movement to write what was writen. That is information that cannot be destroyed
To understand the word “information” as it is meant in science, will I start by compare it by a billiard table with balls on it. 🙂
Imagine you see a billiard table and the balls are placed randomly on the table. Firstly would you be able to guess that someone has played or is playing, and if you were some sort of amazing genius could you tell what ball got hit by what other ball and in a way deduce every shot the players had made up til now.
These ball’s position is in other word the “information” and no matter how you continue playing, move the balls off table or whatever will the fact that they have been moved and how they were moved to end like this, always be there. It is just getting harder to go back through time and say how exactly the balls have moved, but it will never get erased.
All atoms in the universe are like these balls and if you had enough time and skill, could you out from their position right now, go back through time and say exactly how the atoms were positioned at any time. No matter how you move these atoms or kick them around is it still a fact that you just added movement, you will never be able to erase the fact that they have been moved in some way to end up exactly there where they are now. 🙂
This universe is a faithful witness to everything that has taken place within it. It is a record of what has happened within it.
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