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Re: [Phys-L] [**External**] wordle physics (information theory etc.)



I have not watched this one yet. But I have watched many of his others and they are always fascinating and beautiful. I rewatch the “Essentials of Linear Algebra” series annually. And to recommend just one more: the one with Steve Strogatz about the Brachistochrone!!

On Feb 13, 2022, at 3:59 PM, John Denker via Phys-l <phys-l@mail.phys-l.org> wrote:

Here is a really good 30-minute video:
"Solving Wordle using information theory"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v68zYyaEmEA
created by "3Blue1Brown" whoever that is.

It explains information theory from scratch, using wordle as
motivation and illustration.

Students who know what a logarithm is should be able to follow
it. Gets the science right. Decent production values.

========

Note: I consider this topic to be part of physics, indeed
central to physics, for at least two reasons:

*) Entropy is entropy. There is only one kind of entropy.
It would be a blunder to define Shannon entropy differently
from Boltzmann entropy.
There has never been any serious doubt about this.
Any vestige of doubt was annihilated by the work on the
physics of computation in the 1980s (by Charlie Bennett
among others).

*) Even if we were engaged in, say, agriculture, where entropy
is not one of the central topics of study, it would still have
utilitarian value in connection with /design of experiment/.

===

Pedagogical remark: This seems IMHO in the Goldilocks zone:
*) Well motivated.
*) Complicated enough to be authentic.
*) Simple enough to be comprehensible by non-experts.

In other words, neither oversimplified nor overcomplicated.
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