(March 18, 2015 at 6:02 pm)watchamadoodle Wrote:Quote:I saw an article describing entropy as the log of the number of states of a computer byte (i.e. the number of bits). Does this suggest that the universe is discrete, or is there a non-discrete way of imagining entropy too? (Sorry I know this is probably a silly question.)
No, it's not a silly question at all! It's a quite deep question actually. I tentatively would answer that in systems where there are no discrete states, one calculates entropy by taking the log of the measure (the volume) in space of the number of accessible states. But I'd have to crack open a book on quantum statistics to be sure...
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition