The Use of the Information Theoretic Entropy in Thermodynamics

Statistical Physics and Complexity Group meeting

The Use of the Information Theoretic Entropy in Thermodynamics

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 30th January 2013
  • Speaker: Justin Whitehouse (Formerly School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

Probabilistic mixtures of thermodynamic states are often considered in controvesial thermodynamics problems, such as Maxwell's Demon, but there have been some disagreements about what the entropy of such a probabilistic mixed state is. I will outline a proof that the entropy of the mixed state can be expressed in terms of the entropies of the individual thermodynamic states, and the Shannon entropy of the distribution of the mixture.