information theory

2 posts

Dispelling Maxwell's demon

12 min read
Analysis Scicomm Science arrow of time Charles Bennett decoherence Dennis Gabor entropy information theory James Clerk Maxwell Léon Brillouin Leo Szilard Maxwell's demon no-cloning theorem quantum entanglement quantum information Quantum mechanics Rolf Landauer Schrödinger's cat second law of thermodynamics unitarity wavefunction collapse

Maxwell’s demon is one of the most famous thought experiments in the history of physics, a puzzle first posed in the 1860s that continues to shape scientific debates to this day. I’ve struggled to mak…

Journalistic entropy

6 min read
Analysis Scicomm conspiracy theories coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 entropy fact-checking false balance health journalism image compression Indian Council of Medical Research information theory Prime Minister Narendra Modi Priyanka Pulla pseudoscience science journalism thermodynamics Washington Post

Say you need to store a square image 1,000 pixels wide to a side with the smallest filesize (setting aside compression techniques). The image begins with the colour #009900 on the left side and, as yo…