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Re: entropy



On Mon, 25 Nov 1996, Leigh Palmer wrote:
That won't wash. The entropy of a system does not depend one tiny bit
on "the INFORMATION we have about" it! If you believe that it does,

I would have expected the writer was using a little verbal shorthand here
for saying that information theory provides the tools for a clear
understanding of the meaning of entropy.

That's what you may think, but if that is the intent it just gets
the student in deeper - one more thing to worry about - information!
I don't think the Shannon interpretation is really a good place to
start at all. It is only comprehensible (and only as a theory of
information transfer) as an analogy to someone who already has a
grounding in the fundamentals of thermodynamics.

Any student who can appreciate what energy is can do the same with
entropy - provided she is not lumbered with the idea that it is
mysterious. Linking it with a concept like disorder has just that
undesirable effect.

Students hear it and quite justifiably think
that physicists believe in magic.

Much like telling students that the quantum state of a system depends on
our observation of it. ;-)

That is a good comparison. Strict construction of the Copenhagen
interpretation is the same sort of cognitive error, much like the
strict construction of the bible you lament in your entropy essay
(which is quite good in my opinion). Tell me, though: what is the
meaning of that emoticon ;-) you used above? I gather that you do
not believe in the Copenhagen interpretation any more than I do.

Leigh