Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Order being born from disorder?



At 04:01 PM 5/17/97 EDT, LUDWIK KOWALSKI wrote:
... I would like somebody to assign entropies
to the following patterns. Each of them is ten bits long sequnce of zeros
and ones.
0000011111 entropy= ?
1111100000 entropy= ? (probably the same as above)
0101010101 entropy= ?
0010011011 entropy=?
0001001100 entropy=?
0000000000 entropy=?
1100110011 entropy=?
0001000001 entropy=?


To quote from David's excellent note...
In general, entropy is a property of a probability distribution. Each
(typically discrete) distribution has its own entropy. ...

As such, a single microstate does not have an entropy. The answer to all
the lines above is "no such thing".

However, if I understand correctly, you can define a complexity for a given
microstate. I'll venture out on a limb, although I can claim *no*
expertise...
0000011111 => "first half 0's, rest 1's" => 3 bits (one for "first half",
one for "0's", one for "rest 1's")
0101010101 => "01 repeated" => 3 bits ("0" "1" "repeated")
0000000000 => "all 0's" => 1 bit
0010011011 => "001 twice, 1011" => 8 bits

Now someone who knows what they are talking about can tell me if I am
(close to) correct.

--
--James McLean
jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu
post doc
UC San Diego, Chemistry