Back to the Future: The Case for Reversible Computing

There is one, and only one way, consistent with fundamental physics, that the efficiency of general digital computation can continue increasing indefinitely, and that is to apply the principles of reversible computing. We need to begin intensive development work on this technology soon if we want to maintain advances in computing and the attendant economic growth. NOTE: This paper is an extended author’s preprint of the feature article titled “Throwing Computing Into Reverse” (print) or “The Future of Computing Depends on Making it Reversible” (online), published by IEEE Spectrum in Aug.-Sep. 2017. This preprint is based on the original draft manuscript that the author submitted to Spectrum, prior to IEEE edits and feedback from external readers.