negentropy
Sign in to saveIn information theory and statistics, negentropy is used as a measure of distance to normality. It is also known as negative entropy or syntropy.
Article
6 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Information theory
- Correlation between statistical negentropy and Gibbs free energy
- Brillouin's negentropy principle of information
- See also
- References
In information theory and statistics, negentropy is used as a measure of distance to normality. It is also known as negative entropy or syntropy.
== Etymology == The concept and phrase "negative entropy" was introduced by Erwin Schrödinger in his 1944 book What is Life?. Later, the French physicist Léon Brillouin shortened the phrase to (). In 1974, Albert Szent-Györgyi proposed replacing the term negentropy with syntropy. That term may have originated in the 1940s with the Italian mathematician Luigi Fantappiè, who tried to construct a unified theory of biology and physics. Buckminster Fuller tried to popularize this usage, but negentropy remains common.