scholarly journals From Thermodynamic Entropy to Knowledge Entropy

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 589-596
Author(s):  
Constantin Bratianu
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
The Body ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Computational Formula ◽  
Absolute Entropy ◽  
Concept Of Information

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to present the evolution of the concept of entropy from engineering to knowledge management, going through information theory, linguistic entropy, and economic entropy. The concept of entropy was introduced by Rudolf Clausius in thermodynamics in 1865 as a measure of heat transfer between two solid bodies which have different temperatures. As a natural phenomenon, heat flows from the body with a higher temperature toward the body with a lower temperature. However, Rudolf Clausius defined only the change in entropy of the system and not its absolute entropy. Ludwig Boltzmann defined later the absolute entropy by studying the gas molecules behavior in a thermal field. The computational formula defined by Boltzmann relates the microstates of a thermal system with its macrostates. The more uniform the probability distribution of the microstates is the higher the entropy is. The second law of thermodynamics says that in open systems, when there is no intervention from outside, the entropy of the system increases continuously. The concept of entropy proved to be very powerful, fact for which many researchers tried to extend its semantic area and the application domain. In 1948, Claude E. Shannon introduced the concept of information entropy, having the same computational formula as that defined by Boltzmann, but with a different interpretation. This concept solved many engineering communications problems and is used extensively in information theory. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen used the concept of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics in economics and business. Today, many researchers in economics use the concept of entropy for analyzing different phenomena. The present paper explores the possibility of using the concept of knowledge entropy in knowledge management.

Cultivating Chaos: Entropy, Information, and the Making of the Dictionary of National Biography

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Cara Murray
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Entropy Information ◽  
Self Development ◽  
National Biography ◽  
Infinite Energy ◽  
Private Collections

The Dictionary of National Biography, published between 1885 and 1900, was one of Britain's biggest cyclopedia projects. The rampant expansion of the nation's archives, private collections, and museums produced an abundance of materials that frustrated the dictionary's editors, Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, especially because methodologies for making order of such materials were underdeveloped. Adding to their frustration was the sense of impending doom felt generally in Britain after the discovery of the second law of thermodynamics in 1859. Entropy put an end to the presiding belief in the infinite energy that fueled Britain's economic development and therefore challenged Victorian biography's premise that the capacity for self-development was boundless. Like the physicists of the era, these dictionary makers searched for ways to circumvent entropy's deadening force and reenergize their world. This project would not actually be achieved, however, until the twentieth century when Claude Shannon published his “Information Theory” in 1948. I argue that in an attempt to get out from under the chaos of information overload, the editors of the DNB invented new methods to organize information that anticipated Shannon's revolutionary theory and changed the way that we think, write, and work.

Energy and heat

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Equilibrium ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
Constant Pressure ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Ideal Gas ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Total Entropy ◽  
Isothermal Conditions ◽  
System P

Energy is the capacity to do work and heat is the spontaneous flow of energy from one body or system to another through the random movement of atoms or molecules. The entropy of a system determines how much of its internal energy is unavailable for work under isothermal conditions, and the Gibbs energy is the energy available for work under isothermal conditions and constant pressure. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that for any reaction to proceed spontaneously the total entropy (system plus surroundings) must increase, which is why metabolic processes release heat. All organisms are thermodynamically open systems, exchanging both energy and matter with their surroundings. They can decrease their entropy in growth and development by ensuring a greater increase in the entropy of the environment. For an ideal gas in thermal equilibrium the distribution of energy across the component atoms or molecules is described by the Maxwell-Boltzmann equation. This distribution is fixed by the temperature of the system.

Information theory and the second law of thermodynamics

2020 ◽  
pp. 391-408
Author(s):  
Roman V. Belavkin ◽  
Panos M. Pardalos ◽  
Jose C. Principe ◽  
Ruslan L. Stratonovich
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law

scholarly journals Entropy and Information Theory: Uses and Misuses

Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (12) ◽  
pp. 1170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arieh Ben-Naim
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Cosmological Constant ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Single Person ◽  
History Of

This article is about the profound misuses, misunderstanding, misinterpretations and misapplications of entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Information Theory. It is the story of the “Greatest Blunder Ever in the History of Science”. It is not about a single blunder admitted by a single person (e.g., Albert Einstein allegedly said in connection with the cosmological constant, that this was his greatest blunder), but rather a blunder of gargantuan proportions whose claws have permeated all branches of science; from thermodynamics, cosmology, biology, psychology, sociology and much more.

scholarly journals TRANSITION AND EVOLUTION OF INFORMATION AT THE MICROSCOPIC LEVEL

T-Comm ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 62-66
Author(s):  
Aleksey V. Yudenkov ◽  
◽  
Aleksandr M. Volodchenkov ◽  
Liliya P. Rimskaya ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Phase Space ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Mathematic Model ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Space Model ◽  
Discrete Phase ◽  
Markovian Systems ◽  
Phase Space Model

A simultaneous development of the fundamental research areas of the information theory is needed for efficient development in the information technologies. It is known that for the complicated macroscopic systems information evolution may be shaped on the basis of the principal thermodynamics laws (the second law of thermodynamics, etc). At the same time it is not known whether the fundamentals of the information theory for the macroscopic systems may be applicable to the microscopic systems. The study works out a mathematic model of the discrete phase space adapted to describing the evolution of information (entropy) of the microscopic systems. The discrete phase-space model rests on the indeterminacy principle and fundamental properties of the discrete continuous-time Markovian systems. The Kolmogorov equations represent the main mathematical tools technique. The suggested model refers to the smallest metric scale when the external macroscopic observation is possible. This scale can be viewed as a quasiclassical level. The research results are the following. The structure of the phase space of the elementary signal is revealed. It is demonstrated that the entropy of the microscopic systems increases, i.e. for the microscopic systems the second law of thermodynamics is true. There has been demonstrated transition from the microscopic model to the macroscopic one thus proving the former’s adequacy. The discrete phase-space model is promising in the aspect of further development. For example, it can be applied to the physical systems “particle – field”. The approach represented by the model will allow to study electromagnetic and gravity fields at the quasiclassical level. The above model of the discrete phase space and its application in the study of the evolution of the microscopic systems is a proprietary design of the authors.

scholarly journals Application of the second law of thermodynamics in assessing the effectiveness of dietary supplements

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 138-146
Author(s):  
N. S. Rodionova ◽  
A. B. Vishnyakov ◽  
E. S. Popov ◽  
E. V. Belokurova ◽  
N. A. Rodionova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nutritional Status ◽  
Dietary Supplements ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
The Body ◽  
Biologically Active ◽  
Qualitative Assessment ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Functional Capabilities ◽  
Oxidative Processes ◽  
The Impact

The most important area of any biophysical research is the study of the influx and conversion of energy in biological systems - bioenergy, which ensures the vital activity of the body. Analysis of the possibilities of stabilization of the human body from the standpoint of biothermodynamics is that it allows you to more fully and correctly assess the impact not only on biologically active substances, but also on human health. Analysis of the results of experimental and theoretical sources of biothermodynamics, the authors came up with the idea of positioning biologically active additives to the entropy component, which consists in the fact that drugs or surgery are required to treat a person. to any effect (reduction of chaos, therefore, a decrease in entropy). Important for understanding the thermodynamic approach to evaluating dietary supplements is that they do not increase the entropy of the system. The authors are convinced of the need to revise the paradigm for assessing biological activity (bioeffectiveness, biocorrective properties, functional capabilities) and the substances that underlie the transition from differential quantitative characteristics to an integral qualitative assessment of the overall effectiveness of oxidative processes in the body. This pattern of thermodynamics: a quantitative sign of nutritional status; the second law of thermodynamics as a qualitative characteristic of nutritional status

scholarly journals Change of information content due to natural selection in populations with and without recombination

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang A. Tiefenbrunner
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Information Content ◽  
Mutation Rate ◽  
Fitness Landscape ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Deleterious Mutations ◽  
Gene Level ◽  
Theoretical View

AbstractThough evolution undoubtedly operates in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, the law of disorder, during billions of years organisms of incredible complexity came into being. Natural selection was described by Darwin2 as a process of optimization of the adaptation to environment, but optimization doesn’t necessarily lead to higher intricacy. Methods of thermodynamics and thus of information theory could be suited for the examination of the increase of order and information due to evolution.Here I explain how to quantify the increase of information due to natural selection on the genotype and gene level using the observable change of allele frequencies. In populations with recombination (no linkage), the change of information content can be computed by summing up the contributions of all gene loci and thus gene loci can be treated as independent no matter what the fitness-landscape looks like. Pressure of deleterious mutations decreases information in a linear way, proportional to fitness loss and mutation rate.The information theoretical view on evolution might open new fields of research.

scholarly journals The Second Law and Entropy Misconceptions Demystified

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 648
Author(s):  
Milivoje M. Kostic
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Mass Energy ◽  
Energy Potential ◽  
Ordered Structures ◽  
Thermodynamic Entropy ◽  
Thermal Disorder ◽  
Non Equilibrium

The challenges and claims of hypothetical violations of the Second Law of thermodynamics have been a topic of many scientific, philosophical and social publications, even in the most prestigious scientific journals. Fascination with challenging the Second Law has further accelerated throughout the development of statistical and quantum physics, and information theory. It is phenomenologically reasoned here that non-equilibrium, useful work-energy potential is always dissipated to heat, and thus thermodynamic entropy (a measure of thermal disorder, not any other disorder) is generated always and everywhere, at any scale without exception, including life processes, open systems, micro-fluctuations, gravity or entanglement. Furthermore, entropy cannot be destroyed by any means at any scale (entropy is conserved in ideal, reversible processes and irreversibly generated in real processes), and thus, entropy cannot overall decrease, but only overall increase. Creation of ordered structures or live species always dissipate useful energy and generate entropy, without exception, and thus without Second Law violation. Entropy destruction would imply spontaneous increase in non-equilibrium, with mass-energy flux displacement against cause-and-effect, natural forces, as well as negate the reversible existence of the very equilibrium. In fact, all resolved challengers’ paradoxes and misleading violations of the Second Law to date have been resolved in favor of the Second Law and never against. We are still to witness a single, still open Second Law violation, to be confirmed.

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