Updated 2 years ago
https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/dark-matter-theory?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5
Reddit discussion
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/et0mdm/testable_theory_suggests_information_has_mass_and/
Comment from a friend, David Sainai
I recall reading something similar to this about Maxwell‘s theories of electromagnetism. Not relating to dark matter, but generally about information having a direct relevance to physics. It had to do with high-energy radiation like gamma rays and x-rays. What this book (Einstein’s Heroes) said was that the amount of energy that a single photon can contain is proportional to its wavelength. And there is a direct connection to that photon’s “information content”. High-frequency wavelengths are more complex than low-frequency ones, so they can contain more information. Just look at a visual representation of high-frequency musical sounds compared to bass sounds. The high frequencies are much more complex, containing much more information. When music is converted into digital form, the high frequencies eat up all of the file size, because it requires more bits to express them. Bass frequencies are simpler and take less bits to express digitally. Regardless of the medium, high frequency waves store more information than low frequency waves. For some reason (which I don’t grasp), this increased information capacity is directly related to the energy capacity of a photon. So, a single gamma ray photon contains vastly more energy than low frequency photons because it *contains more information*. Pretty cool. To make an analogy, gamma rays are very damaging to human bodies and infrared waves are not, because a gamma ray is like someone throwing a 3 terabyte hard disk at you, and an infrared wave is like someone throwing a usb thumb drive at you.
