Space, Energy & Information
Fields, radiation, and the energetic transmission of knowledge
Overview
Information travels through space on carriers of energy: light, radio waves, gravitational waves, and sound all transport informational content across spatial distances using energetic means. The electromagnetic spectrum is the information highway of the cosmos, and every signal requires energy to generate, propagate, and detect. This triad describes the physics of communication: the energetic cost of sending information across space, the bandwidth limits imposed by physics, and the fundamental relationship between spatial extent, energetic investment, and informational throughput.
Central Tension
The tension is between the energetic cost of spatial information transmission and the theoretical possibility of lossless communication. In practice, signals attenuate with distance, noise corrupts information, and energy is required to overcome these degradations. Shannon's channel capacity theorem sets fundamental limits on how much information can be transmitted per unit of energy across a spatial channel. Whether these limits are absolute or whether quantum communication and entanglement can circumvent them is an active area of research.
Key Philosophical Questions
- Is there a fundamental limit on how much information can be transmitted per unit of energy across a given spatial distance?
- Does quantum entanglement provide a way to transmit information across space without the usual energetic costs?
- Is the spatial structure of energy fields (electromagnetic, gravitational) itself a form of information?
- Could the vacuum energy of empty space carry information, and if so, what would it mean?
Schools of Thought
Information transmission is a physical process: energy carries information through space according to the laws of electromagnetism, and Shannon limits are physical facts.
Quantum fields in space carry both energy and information; entanglement creates informational correlations that transcend the classical picture of energy-mediated signal propagation.
Space is the network, energy is the bandwidth, and information is the traffic. The universe is a communication system processing data through an energetic spatial medium.
Information is the primary reality; energy in space is the mechanism by which information propagates and organizes itself into observable patterns.
God's Word (information) pervades all space and is sustained by his power (energy). The energetic transmission of information through creation reflects God's ongoing communicative activity in sustaining the world.
Synthesis
Space, energy, and information together define the physics of communication: every message travels through space on an energetic carrier, and the laws of physics set fundamental limits on the rate, fidelity, and cost of this transmission. The universe is, in this sense, a vast communication network — and understanding its informational-energetic structure is the task of modern physics.
Related Dimension Pairs