Reverse computation (original) (raw)

Reverse computation is a software application of the concept of reversible computing. Because it offers a possible solution to the heat problem faced by chip manufacturers, reversible computing has been extensively studied in the area of computer architecture. The promise of reversible computing is that the amount of heat loss for reversible architectures would be minimal for significantly large numbers of transistors. Rather than creating entropy (and thus heat) through destructive operations, a reversible architecture conserves the energy by performing other operations that preserve the system state.