For further math & physics reading: John has a good blog [1], where he’s currently writing a series of posts on working out how classical statistical mechanics reduces to thermodynamics in the limit where Boltzmann’s constant approaches zero – like how quantum mechanics reduces to classical in the limit where Planck’s constant approaches zero.
Scroll down to the section on information theory and statistical mechanics. (I would have provided a link to it directly but cannot on my phone…?)
Anyway, Ben-Naim writes in a way that is antagonistic to the status quo, which can be offputting. Still, I found helpful his ideas around entropy being better termed as “missing information”, and his explanation of why this is unrelated specifically to the arrow of time (plenty of things apart from time lead to increase in missing information).
I would have provided a link to it directly but cannot on my phone…?
At the bottom of the page should be a “Desktop” link that leads to the desktop version of the page, which should have links to sections in a sidebar on the left.
I read this a while back, and really enjoyed it.
For further math & physics reading: John has a good blog [1], where he’s currently writing a series of posts on working out how classical statistical mechanics reduces to thermodynamics in the limit where Boltzmann’s constant approaches zero – like how quantum mechanics reduces to classical in the limit where Planck’s constant approaches zero.
1: https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com
I got something out of Ariel Ben-Naim’s ideas on the subject:
Scroll down to the section on information theory and statistical mechanics. (I would have provided a link to it directly but cannot on my phone…?)
Anyway, Ben-Naim writes in a way that is antagonistic to the status quo, which can be offputting. Still, I found helpful his ideas around entropy being better termed as “missing information”, and his explanation of why this is unrelated specifically to the arrow of time (plenty of things apart from time lead to increase in missing information).
At the bottom of the page should be a “Desktop” link that leads to the desktop version of the page, which should have links to sections in a sidebar on the left.
Ooh that’s really interesting. Thank you. I used to teach this topic at undergraduate level, but had not come across Ben-Naim.