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Re: [Phys-l] Entropy

On 12/16/2008 06:02 AM, chuck britton wrote:
As usual, John has written an EXCELLENT intro to entropy is this
'essay'.

:-)


BUT - I've tripped of the deck of cards with multiple cuts.
I don't see how we can figure out the configuration with just six
bits after two cuts.
You can get the top card - but not the rest of the configuration.
Maybe two cuts would require twelve bits? Six to locate EACH of the
two cuts?

It's cheap to do the experiment.

If you're really in a hurry, do it with eight cards,
perhaps the A through 8 inclusive. Put them in
numerical order, cut a few times, and see what
happens.

I claim that after N cuts, for all N greater than
zero, you need 3 bits to specify the microstate.