Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics is the modern theory of heat. It is identical in form to the theory of fair gambling devices.

The unobserved state-space of thermodynamics contains the so-called “accessible microstates.” The observed state-space contains the so-called “macrostate.” The various states describe a chunk of matter at “equilibrium.”

Thermodynamics was developed in the 19^th century by the physicist Rudolf Clausius. One of
Clausius’s achievements was to discover and name the “entropy.” Clausius’s “second law of thermodynamics” stated that the entropy of a chunk of matter was maximized.

Later in the same century, the physicists Ludwig Boltzmann and Willard Gibbs gave the entropy a statistical interpretation; in this interpretation, the entropy was a mathematical function which mapped the probabilities of the microstates to a non-negative real number.

In the 20^th century, Claude Shannon published his theory of communication. Shannon’s theory implied that Clausius’s “entropy” was the measure of an inference and was the missing information in this inference for a deductive conclusion. The second law of thermodynamics optimized the inference that was made by thermodynamics.

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