Landauer: logical irreversibility and heat generation

What changed

Connected logical irreversibility to unavoidable entropy generation in switching models.

Scientific scope

The record is Landauer’s sole-author 1961 IBM Journal paper. The bound applies to logically irreversible operations under thermodynamic assumptions; it is not a claim that every elementary logical operation must dissipate that amount.

Evidence

The linked sources identify this contribution and its scope. WRS has not independently reconstructed the scientific claims. The record is Landauer’s sole-author 1961 IBM Journal paper. The bound applies to logically irreversible operations under thermodynamic assumptions; it is not a claim that every elementary logical operation must dissipate that amount.

Contributors

• Rolf Landauer · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.

• IBM/IEEE page for Landauer paper
• University-hosted Landauer reprint

Provisional WRS assessment, edition 2026-10-16.1. Independent expert calibration is pending. This grade does not certify correctness or assign ownership.

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