Equation 6 · Part 1 · From Origins to Frontier: A History of Stochastic Thermodynamics and Complex Systems
Symbol k_B
What this part means
is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Its job in the formula
is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Full expression→Symbol k_B→Article meaning
The passage around this formula
It is worth being explicit about what remained unverified in 1961: Landauer’s paper was a theoretical argument grounded in general reasoning about bistable physical systems, not a measurement. No experiment existed, or could have existed with 1961-era instrumentation, capable of resolving a T2 heat signature from a single erased bit — that quantity, at room temperature, is on the order of 10^{-21} joules, far below the noise floor of any calorimetry available at the time. The principle stood as an unconfirmed but increasingly trusted theoretical result for more than fifty years.
Learn the underlying idea
A subscript is a label attached below a symbol. It often selects a time step, component, category, or member of a sequence.
Open the illustrated subscripts: which member of a family? guide →
See this notation across published equations →
Sources cited in the article section
These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.