6.050J | Spring 2008 | Undergraduate

Information and Entropy

Unit 9: Maximum Entropy

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Technical

The person most responsible for use of maximum entropy principles in various fields of science is Edwin T. Jaynes. The seminal papers are:

Historical

Books

  • The philosophy of assuming maximum uncertainty is discussed in Chapter 3 of Tribus, M. Thermostatics and Thermodynamics. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Co, Inc., 1961.
  • Another good explanation, in terms of estimating probabilities of an unfair die is in Jaynes, E. T. “Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics (PDF).” In Statistical Physics. Brandeis Summer Institute 1962. New York, NY: W. A. Benjamin, Inc., 1963. pp. 181–218.
  • Buy at MIT Press Personal history by Jaynes, Edwin T. “Where Do We Stand on Maximum Entropy? (PDF - 2.5 MB)” In The Maximum Entropy Formalism. Edited by Raphael D. Levine and Myron Tribus. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978. pp. 15-118. ISBN: 9780262120807.
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