信息热力学:从物理学到神经科学

The first law of thermodynamics deals with the total amount of energy in the universe. It states that this total amount of energy is constant. In other words, there has always been, and always will be, exactly the same amount of energy in the universe. Energy exists in many different forms. According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy may transfer from place to place or transform into different forms, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The transfers and transformations of energy...

The second law of thermodynamics can be stated quantitatively using the concept of entropy. Entropy is the measure of disorder of the system.
The relation  between entropy and disorder can be illustrated with the example of the phase change of ice to water. In ice, the molecules are located at specific sites giving a solid state, whereas, in a liquid form, these molecules are much freer to move. The molecular arrangement has therefore become more randomized. Although the change in average...

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. This can be demonstrated within a classic food web where light energy from the sun is harnessed as radiant energy by plants, converted into chemical energy, and stored as complex carbohydrates. The vegetation is then consumed by animals and during the digestion process, the sugars release energy as heat. The sugars also produce chemical energy that either gets used up doing work, stored in...

Consider the two thermodynamic processes involving an ideal gas that are represented by paths AC and ABC in Figure 1:

The first law of thermodynamics states that the change in internal energy of the system is equal to the net heat transfer into the system minus the net work done by the system. This equation is a generalized form of energy conservation and can be applied to any thermodynamic process.
The following strategies can be used to solve any problem involving the first law of thermodynamics.

The second law of thermodynamics can be stated in several different ways, and all of them can be shown to imply the others. The Clausius’ statement of the second law of thermodynamics is based on the irreversibility of spontaneous heat flow. It states that heat will not flow from the colder body to the hotter body unless some other process is involved. Additionally, as per the Kelvin’s statement, it is impossible to convert the heat from a single source into work without any other...