| MadSci Network: Physics |
Dear Gregg!
This concept was entirely new to me as well, and the information
I could get out of the Santa Fe Institute's pages wasn't too
helpful either. I think what you refer to as ``The Physics of
Information'' is what they call
``Computational
Mechanics''. They are trying to refine the very useful but
also rather crude concepts of statistical mechanics (especially
entropy, which measures, roughly speaking, the degree of ``randomness''
in a system). Entropy is an extensive potential, i.e. it is some
value that is valid for the whole system, regardless of its
``fine structure''. So if you want to get a refined picture of
the information contained and processed in some system, you have
to introduce new variables that describe the system in more
detail.
A collection of recent papers on these topics can be found
here.
I hope I could be of some help to you.
Georg.