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But there is still a cost. At some point, the bits must be flushed from the computer's memory so that the machine can be reset for another computation. It is then, when the information is erased, Dr. Landauer demonstrated, that a certain irreducible amount of energy is lost. This result, now called Landauer's principle, has been described as ''the thermodynamic cost of forgetting.'' - www.nytimes.com