On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 1:35 PM Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 10:07 AM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> >> >> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:12:34 AM UTC-6, Alan Grayson wrote: >>> >>> If the early universe, say before the emergence of the CMBR, consisted >>> of a random collection of electrons and photons, wouldn't this correspond >>> to a *high*, not low entropy? Wouldn't it be analogous to gas with many >>> possible states? Yet cosmologists seem hard pressed to explain an initial >>> or early state assuming the entropy is low. AG >>> >> >> Here's an easier question: when Boltzmann defined entropy as S = k * log >> N, why the log; why not just k*N? AG >> > > > I don't know the relationship between heat and information, I think it is > relevant to the Bekenstein bound and black hole information, and also the > Landauer limit, but there's another definition of entropy in information > theory: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory) > > The information theoretical definition of entropy is measured in bits > (binary digits). The reason for the logarithm is it takes Log2(N) bits to > represent N states. There's nothing special about the base you can also > say it takes Log10(N) decimal digits to encode a number N. > > Jason > I found this article which adds more detail: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_in_thermodynamics_and_information_theory Jason > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUiwC9%3Ds42p8D5-m0bPf28GtfRY%2Bpd%2B9EkLzKfzUNw2wTQ%40mail.gmail.com.
