Logical Reversibility of Computation

[Coding Guide] Programmer's Introduction to Reversible Computing for Quantum, Thermodynamic and Catalytic Computers

Quick intro

LeetArxiv is Leetcode for implementing Arxiv and other research papers.

1.0 Introduction

Frontmatter for the 1973 paper “Logical Reversibility of Computation” by C.H Bennett

In this paper, C.H Bennett (1973)¹ introduces the concept of designing logical gates that enable reversible computing.

Reversible computing is founded on the observation that information loss in classical Boolean circuits is linked to heat dissipation (Landauer 1961)². Making computing reversible leads to little heat loss, making computations more energy efficient.

1.1 Paper’s Importance

This paper is canonical in the following ways :

1. Quantum computing, Thermodynamic computing and Catalytic computing are different computational paradigms stemming from the idea of reversible computers.

2. This paper motivates the design of Toffoli gates in 1980³ and Fredkin gates in 1981⁴.

The paper’s theory builds upon a 3-tape turing machine. Implementing this is not particularly useful and so, we shall spend the rest of the article coding reversible logic gates.