dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaInformation physics: From energy to codes
| Authors | P. Fraundorf |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/9611022 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9611022 |
Abstract
We illustrate in terms familiar to modern day science students that: (i) an uncertainty slope mechanism underlies the usefulness of temperature via its reciprocal, which is incidentally around 42 [nats/eV] at the freezing point of water; (ii) energy over kT and differential heat capacity are ``multiplicity exponents'', i.e. the bits of state information lost to the environment outside a system per 2-fold increase in energy and temperature respectively; (iii) even awaiting description of ``the dice'', gambling theory gives form to the laws of thermodynamics, availability minimization, and net surprisals for measuring finite distances from equilibrium, information content differences, and complexity; (iv) heat and information engine properties underlie the biological distinction between autotrophs and heterotrophs, and life's ongoing symbioses between steady-state excitations and replicable codes; and (v) mutual information resources (i.e. correlations between structures e.g. a phenomenon and its explanation, or an organism and its niche) within and across six boundary types (ranging from the edges of molecules to the gap between cultures) are delocalized physical structures whose development is a big part of the natural history of invention. These tools might offer a physical framework to students of the code-based sciences when considering such disparate (and sometimes competing) issues as conservation of available work and the nurturing of genetic or memetic diversity.
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"abstract": "We illustrate in terms familiar to modern day science students that: (i) an\nuncertainty slope mechanism underlies the usefulness of temperature via its\nreciprocal, which is incidentally around 42 [nats/eV] at the freezing point of\nwater; (ii) energy over kT and differential heat capacity are ``multiplicity\nexponents\u0027\u0027, i.e. the bits of state information lost to the environment outside\na system per 2-fold increase in energy and temperature respectively; (iii) even\nawaiting description of ``the dice\u0027\u0027, gambling theory gives form to the laws of\nthermodynamics, availability minimization, and net surprisals for measuring\nfinite distances from equilibrium, information content differences, and\ncomplexity; (iv) heat and information engine properties underlie the biological\ndistinction between autotrophs and heterotrophs, and life\u0027s ongoing symbioses\nbetween steady-state excitations and replicable codes; and (v) mutual\ninformation resources (i.e. correlations between structures e.g. a phenomenon\nand its explanation, or an organism and its niche) within and across six\nboundary types (ranging from the edges of molecules to the gap between\ncultures) are delocalized physical structures whose development is a big part\nof the natural history of invention. These tools might offer a physical\nframework to students of the code-based sciences when considering such\ndisparate (and sometimes competing) issues as conservation of available work\nand the nurturing of genetic or memetic diversity.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/9611022",
"authors": [
"P. Fraundorf"
],
"categories": [
"physics.ed-ph",
"cond-mat.stat-mech",
"physics.bio-ph",
"q-bio.QM"
],
"title": "Information physics: From energy to codes",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9611022"
},
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