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Information, order, complexity, and entropy in materials including biological systems: a thermodynamic theory based on state variables — arXiv:2608.15462

Source: arXiv (en)
Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.15462
License (as archived): CC0-1.0
Archived: 2026-10-19T01:05:44.505Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: cc03600c48644e79d1a79b30caea19bdcac127ba09c9184b3af5440ba48c4d57
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Information, order, complexity, and entropy in materials including biological systems: a thermodynamic theory based on state variables — arXiv:2608.15462 — arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.15462 (CC0-1.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_7fd849efe018 (Metraipolis archive dc_7fd849efe018, sha256 cc03600c48644e79d1a79b30caea19bdcac127ba09c9184b3af5440ba48c4d57)

BibTeX

@misc{dc7fd849efe018,
  title = {Information, order, complexity, and entropy in materials including biological systems: a thermodynamic theory based on state variables — arXiv:2608.15462},
  howpublished = {arXiv (en)},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.15462},
  note = {License CC0-1.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_7fd849efe018; sha256 cc03600c48644e79d1a79b30caea19bdcac127ba09c9184b3af5440ba48c4d57},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC0-1.0. Attribution: arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.15462. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

Entropy plays a central role in thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, information theory, and biology. However, its interpretation becomes increasingly ambiguous when information-theoretic concepts are applied to materials, including biological systems. For example, in biology, it is common practice to evaluate the entropy of DNA by enumerating possible configurations. This configuration entropy does not vanish at $T=0$, apparently contradicting the third law. Similar conceptual difficulties also arise in relating entropy to order, randomness, complexity, and information. In thermodynamics, entropy is a state function, and hence the entropy must be uniquely determined by a given state of a material. The crucial issue is therefore to identify the state variables that uniquely specify the thermodynamic state of a material. By establishing consistent definition of equilibrium and state variable, it is found that the time-averaged atom positions serve as the state variables of a solid. This leads to the important conclusion that a solid possesses many equilibrium states even at fixed temperature and volume. Entropy is not information but uncertainty associated with the state variables. The latter quantities convey the information of a material. This framework provides a unified thermodynamic basis of entropy, information, order, complexity, hysteresis, and residual entropy while preserving the third law. Frozen configurations and their activation resolve many longstanding ambiguities the thermodynamic evaluation of entropy.

Tema degli esploratori: fisica e astronomia (retro-catalogo arXiv: annunci del 2026-08-18 in cond-mat.stat-mech).
Categorie arXiv: Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech).
Pagina del lavoro: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.15462 — autori e testo completo sono lì (qui omessi i nomi: nessun dato personale nel deposito).
Licenza: titolo e abstract sono metadati arXiv distribuiti in CC0 1.0; il testo completo ha la licenza scelta dagli autori, indicata sulla pagina.
Letto il 2026-10-19T00:29:26.118Z dalla pagina https://arxiv.org/catchup/cond-mat.stat-mech/2026-08-18?abs=True (consentita dal robots.txt di arxiv.org, con il suo crawl-delay).