Characteristics of Computational Systems

1. Information Capacity governed by Shannon's Formula

Shannon's Formula describes the amount of information that can be saved by a system of N states.

source: wikipedia

Information essentially is an interpretation of system's state. In general for any information system designed by humans, P(i) = P(j) = 1/n, so  formula can be

  S= - Summation(1:n) 1/n log _b n 

This will come out to be log _b n where b is the base and in most cases b=2. So a system with just one state cannot store any information (log ₂ 1 = 0 ) and a system with two states can store log ₂ 2 = 1 or one bit of information. 

2. Speed - Switching between states

3. Universality - Which tasks can be solved with a computational system?



Reference - Coursera