Information, information processing and gravity

Understand

I discuss fundamental limits placed on information and information processing by gravity.

• Such limits arise because both information and its processing require energy, while gravitational collapse (formation of a horizon or black hole) restricts the amount of energy allowed in a finite region.
• Specifically, I use a criterion for gravitational collapse called the hoop conjecture.
• Once the hoop conjecture is assumed a number of results can be obtained directly: the existence of a fundamental uncertainty in spatial distance of order the Planck length, bounds on information (entropy) in a finite region, and a bound on the rate of information processing in a finite region.