DATA AS S ET S
Information decay
How the value of information diminishes over time.
BY DHIRAJ RAJARAM,
KRISHNA RUPANAGUNTA
AND ADITYA KUMBAKONAM
or those of you who still remember high school chemistry, you may recall that
radioactive decay is an inherent property of all matter. And as a
quantum physicist would tell you, while it
is impossible to predict when a particular
atom will decay, the chance that a given
atom will decay is constant over time. We
believe that the same principle holds true
for information within an organization as
well: While it is difficult to predict when a
particular information entity (e.g., a set
of data records) will lose its relevance
for a decision-maker, it is certain that all
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information loses value over time.
The parallels are striking – so much
so that we believe that every information
entity should have an attribute called
“information decay” that describes how
the value of this information decreases
over time, much like the half-life captures
the rate of decay for all matter. As far as
the information entity is concerned, this
phenomenon has accelerated in recent
times as advances in analytics, data and
technology have transformed the way organizations leverage information to drive
decisions. Thanks to an explosion in
data, there is not only a lot of information,
W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G