Andrew McClung’s Comps Talk

15 January 2010

The Thermodynamic Cost of Forgetting

 

Andrew McClung

 

The second law of thermodynamics, the monotonic increase of entropy, is a familiar phenomenon—no microscope is necessary to see its results, and its validity is a necessity for human life. As broad   as thermodynamic entropy is, it has been suggested that entropy is really a sub-phenomenon of information theory. In my talk I will probe the connection between thermodynamics and information, and present the solution to the quintessential thermodynamic paradox, Maxwell’s Demon.