Unification and Extension of Classic Information Principles

Based on the objective information theory (OIT) proposed by the author, this paper uses a simple real world example to explain the complete connotation of information, addressing outstanding issues that people still lack a general consensus on the essence of information and its relationship with matter and energy and that the understanding of information measurements is difficult to support the analysis and development of modern information systems in today's information age. Four postulates about information are proposed: binary attribute, existence of time duration, state representation, and enabling mapping and it is shown that the sextuple model of information is the necessary and sufficient condition for defining information satisfying these four postulates. An atomic information, the concept of indivisible information, is defined with reference to the idea of indivisibility of elementary particles in the form of matter and quantum in the form of energy. The volume additivity is further proven for combinations of atomic information. Based on the Margolus-Levitin theorem, the information volume that a single quantum carrier can carry in a certain period of time is derived. Using Einstein's mass-energy conversion formula, a theorem relating information volume to mass, energy, and time is proved and the information volume that the universe can carry to date is calculated and analyzed, demonstrating that the theorem reveals more accurately the relationship among information, matter, energy, and time. Finally, it is demonstrated for each metric defined by OIT, a corresponding example could be found in classical or commonly used information theories and principles, which also implies that OIT can accommodate many existing information scientific theories and technical methods.