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Related papers: Boltzmann Entropy : Probability and Information

200 papers

Introducing the Boltzmann distribution very early in a statistical thermodynamics course (in the spirit of Feynmann) has many didactic advantages, in particular that of easily deriving the Gibbs entropy formula. In this note, a short…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2023-02-03 Didier Lairez

We perform a calculation of the first and second order infinitesimal variations, with respect to energy, of the Boltzmann entropy of constant energy hypersurfaces of a system with a finite number of degrees of freedom. We comment on the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2008-11-26 Nikos Kalogeropoulos

Even today, the concept of entropy is perceived by many as quite obscure. The main difficulty is analyzed as being fundamentally due to the subjectivity and anthropocentrism of the concept that prevent us to have a sufficient distance to…

General Physics · Physics 2022-10-21 Didier Lairez

Regardless of studies and debates over a century, the statistical origin of the second law of thermodynamics still remains illusive. One essential obstacle is the lack of a proper theoretical formalism for non-equilibrium entropy. Here I…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-10-18 Xiangjun Xing

This short book is an elementary course on entropy, leading up to a calculation of the entropy of hydrogen gas at standard temperature and pressure. Topics covered include information, Shannon entropy and Gibbs entropy, the principle of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-11-18 John C. Baez

An essential role of information in microscopic thermodynamics (e.g. Maxwell's demon) opens a challenging question if there exists a formulation of the second law of thermodynamics based only on pure information ideas. Here, such a…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2022-04-29 Miroslav Holeček

It is well known that a Shannon based definition of information entropy leads in the classical case to the Boltzmann entropy. It is tempting to regard the Von Neumann entropy as the corresponding quantum mechanical definition. But the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-10 Alexander Stotland , Andrei A. Pomeransky , Eitan Bachmat , Doron Cohen

We demonstrate that Shannon's information entropy and the thermodynamic entropy of Boltzmann and Gibbs are quantitatively equivalent for real condensed-matter systems. By interpreting atomic configurations as information sources, we compute…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-12-03 Dallin Fisher , Qi-Jun Hong

A way to construct Boltzmann entropy, i.e., the entropy as a function of a microscopic pure state, for quantum field systems is proposed. Operators that shift the field in wavevector space are used in the construction. By employing an…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2020-03-25 Kyo Yoshida

We develop an axiomatic reconstruction of thermodynamics based entirely on two primitive components: a description of what aspects of a system are observed and a reference measure that encodes the underlying descriptive convention. These…

Chemical Physics · Physics 2026-01-21 Tatsuaki Tsuruyama

The issue of the thermodynamics of a system of distinguishable particles is discussed in this paper. In constructing the statistical mechanics of distinguishable particles from the definition of Boltzmann entropy, it is found that the…

Chemical Physics · Physics 2009-12-03 Chi-Ho Cheng

These lectures deal with the problem of inductive inference, that is, the problem of reasoning under conditions of incomplete information. Is there a general method for handling uncertainty? Or, at least, are there rules that could in…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2016-09-08 Ariel Caticha

In this article, we review a general theoretical framework of thermodynamics of information on the basis of Bayesian networks. This framework can describe a broad class of nonequilibrium dynamics of multiple interacting systems with complex…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2018-07-23 Sosuke Ito , Takahiro Sagawa

This pedagogical comment highlights three misconceptions concerning the usefulness of the concept of negative temperature; being derived from the usual, often termed Boltzmann, definition of entropy. First, both the Boltzmann and Gibbs…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-04-06 Julian Poulter

During the past dozen years there have been numerous articles on a relation between entropy and probability which is non-additive and has a parameter $q$ that depends on the nature of the thermodynamic system under consideration. For $q=1$…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2009-11-07 Michael Nauenberg

The microscopic explanation of entropy has been challenged from both experimental and theoretical point of view. The expression of entropy is derived from the first law of thermodynamics indicating that entropy or the second law of…

General Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Jozsef Garai

We review with a tutorial scope the information theory foundations of quantum statistical physics. Only a small proportion of the variables that characterize a system at the microscopic scale can be controlled, for both practical and…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2007-05-23 R. Balian

A new concept named nonsymmetric entropy which generalizes the concepts of Boltzman's entropy and shannon's entropy, was introduced. Maximal nonsymmetric entropy principle was proven. Some important distribution laws were derived naturally…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2007-07-13 Chengshi Liu

Observational entropy provides a general notion of quantum entropy that appropriately interpolates between Boltzmann's and Gibbs' entropies, and has recently been argued to provide a useful measure of out-of-equilibrium thermodynamic…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-05-09 Francesco Buscemi , Joseph Schindler , Dominik Šafránek

The fundamental assumption of statistical mechanics is that the system is equally likely in any of the accessible microstates. Based on this assumption, the Boltzmann distribution is derived and the full theory of statistical thermodynamics…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-05-18 X. L. Huang , B. Cui , X. X. Yi