Szilard calculated that at room temperature one bit of information must take at least three thousand-billion-billionths of a joule of work to store.

So one way to get a small change in temperature is to take a derivative with respect to temperature.

"One of the quickest ways to take the financial temperature of a client is to track their balance sheet from year to year," said Walt Mozdzer, a financial planner in West Des Moines, Iowa.