For many years, science has recognized only four existing states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. But the more time it passes, the more updates science receives. It could also be the case now, as researchers are taking into account the scenario of considering information itself as the fifth state of matter.
While it may sound like a wild hypothesis for many, an experiment by Dr. Melvin Vopson from the University of Portsmouth and that’s about to start could confirm the fifth state of matter as being information, as Phys.org reveals.
Does information have mass?
According to a study by Dr. Melvin Vopson, even information contains mass. Furthermore, his work suggests that all of the elementary particles are able to store information. The physicist even claims that information could be dark matter itself that has been puzzling astrophysicists for decades. Dark matter consists of 27% of the Universe, which makes it much more prevalent than the normal matter we perceive each and every day. Only about 5% of the Universe is made of the usual matter made of atoms. Dark energy, on the other hand, represents 68%.
If the theory of information being the fifth state of matter proves to be correct, Vopson believes that it would have a major impact on how we perceive physics. He explains as Phys.org quotes:
This would be a eureka moment because it would change physics as we know it and expand our understanding of the universe. But it wouldn’t conflict with any of the existing laws of physics.
It doesn’t contradict quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics or classical mechanics. All it does is complement physics with something new and incredibly exciting.
The physicist aims to use particle-antiparticle collision to detect the information from an elementary particle and measure it. He explains that while the information from an electron is millions of times smaller than its mass, there’s possible to measure the information by erasing it.
He further explains, as Phys.org also quotes:
We know that when you collide a particle of matter with a particle of antimatter, they annihilate each other. And the information from the particle has to go somewhere when it’s annihilated.
In the end, all we can do now is wait for new information to come about the theory, speaking of information!
