Krimel, How is entropy related to your criticism of the MoQ?
Marsha On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:14 PM, Krimel wrote: > [Marsha] > I made this statement before and received no reply. > > It is my understanding that entropy is the amount of unknown information. > > It this correct, or not? > > [Krimel] > Entropy as a concept arose in the middle of the 1800's with the laws of > thermodynamics. You know matter and energy can neither be created or destroy > only changed in form... > > Entropy in that context can be understood as disorder. Everything is moving > from a state of order to a state of disorder. In all conversions of energy > from one form to another some is lost to heat. That's why you can't build a > perpetual motion machine. > > On earth a constant stream on energy bathes the planet in the form of solar > radition. That constant influx is constantly dissipating but because of the > balance of forces present here it dissipates through often very circuitous > routes. All living things exist as systems for dissipating solar energy > through these convoluted pathways. > > Information theory was first proposed by Shannon in the 1948. I am still > struggling with this but basically information is data plus meaning. Data is > difference. Or as some say a difference that makes a difference. Meaning is > reduction in uncertainty. So information is meaningful data. > > It was quickly realized that information theory could be linked to > thermodynamics. In fact it was determined that thermodynamics is a subset of > information theory and not the other way around. This to my mind makes > information theory pretty frickin' metaphysical since it in effect stands > before physics. > > Information entropy relates to the thermodynamic entropy this way. In > physics it is a measure of disorder in information is refers to > compressibility or the lack there of. We use compression in natural > languages by making the most commonly used words in our language very short, > like "a", "an", "the", "she", "he," etc. This allows "messages" (strings of > meaningful data) to be relatively short or compressed. Messages are > compressed information. The length that a particular message has to be in > order to express meaningful data is Shannon entropy. For example, in order > to fully express the number Pi one has to use an infinite string of numbers. > But the equation for Pi compresses that string to just a few characters. > > Or something like that. As I said I am still struggling with this. > > > > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
