A means for liquid water to retain information

Abstract

Abstract The possibility of information storage in chemically pure water is controversial. Storage of digital information is impossible because hydrogen bonds constantly rearrange themselves; specific protons are not stably coupled to specific oxygen atoms. If information is to be stored, its retention must be by other means. Nevertheless, some scientists have contended that information retention in water is not inconceivable, suggesting that water’s microstructure may be involved. The purpose of this paper is to show how these make it possible for water to retain information of a kind different from any previously conceived. Two kinds of entropy can be defined in water, classical due to heat, and quantum attributable to microstates. The method adopted is to compare the two, and to show that the first produces limitations on the second. The number of polymolecules is so vast that the quantum entropy might exceed the heat entropy. Since the classical, heat entropy cannot be exceeded, the number of polymolecules accessible at a given temperature, T, is restricted, yielding a new form of information, I R(T). The new form of information is entirely different from the four kinds previously known: Fisher Information in Statistics, Digital Information used in IT, Quantum Information, and Experience Information in biological systems at criticality. The new kind of information retained in water is analogous to Fisher Information in that it arises from restriction on the range of a variable, i.e. attributable to limitations on a statistical variable’s values. We therefore propose to name it, ‘Quantum Fisher Information’. Like the process of homoeopathic dilution, which has a limiting temperature around 70° C, Quantum Fisher Information is predicted to have a limiting temperature, T L. This qualitative agreement is encouraging. Prediction of T L requires calculating exact numbers of polymolecules. Information retention in water arises from the structure of quantum entropy, and the vast number of possible water polymolecules. Containing both classical and quantum components, the new information is analogous to Fisher Information in statistics.