Entropy and Information

Cover -- Contents -- About the Author -- Preface -- 1 Reflections on the motive power of fire ... -- Sadi Carnot -- Caloric -- The irreversibility of heat processes -- What did Carnot do? -- The Carnot cycle -- Thermodynamic temperature -- 2 The laws of thermodynamics -- Lomonosov and the conservation laws -- The law of conservation of energy -- The second law -- The pressure of light -- Entropy -- The logarithm and exponential functions -- Calculation of entropy -- Measuring entropy experimentally -- Irreversible processes -- 3 Entropy and free energy -- Obtaining useful work -- Equilibrium conditions -- A chemical reaction -- Melting of crystals and evaporation of liquids -- Why does alcohol dissolve in water yet gasoline not do so? -- Hydrophobic forces and the albumin globule -- What do rubber and an ideal gas have in common? -- Why do we heat a room? -- The mistress of the world and her shadow -- Why was Emden right? -- 4 Entropy and probability -- Boltzmanns formula -- Stirlings formula -- The meaning of Boltzmanns formula -- The fusion of a crystal and the evaporation of a liquid -- Entropic forces -- Entropy of equilibrium states -- A little quantum mechanics -- Gibbs paradox -- Nernsts theorem -- 5 Statistics and mechanics -- The distribution of velocities, and temperature -- The barometric formula and the gravitational perpetuum mobile -- Fluctuations -- Why is the sky blue? -- The age of Darwin -- Laplaces demon and Sinais billiard -- The fate of the universe -- 6 Open systems -- The production and flow of entropy -- The dissipation function -- An astronaut lives on negative entropy -- Why do cells divide? -- Far from equilibrium -- The Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction -- Organisms as dissipative systems -- The three stages of thermodynamics -- 7 Information -- Information and probability -- Informational entropy -- Information and entropy -- Maxwells demon -- Obtaining and creating information -- The value of information -- 8 Entropy, information, life -- The thermodynamics of living organisms -- Biological evolution, entropy, and information -- The value of biological information -- Complexity and irreplaceability -- Complexity and G246;dels theorem -- Information and artistic creation -- Index.