What about Entropy?

[Richard Fiero]

Terrance wrote:
>.  . .
>I guess Entropy, like any other word, has several meanings. Pynchon uses
>the plural "entropies" in GR and both Enzian and Slothrop attribute
>these to THEM.
>
>  "entropy is the loss of information in a transmitted message" this is a
>standard definition. It's one definition in Websters, American
>Heritage,  OED, and it is also one that Wiener uses in Cybernetics and
>one that Pynchon uses in his fictions.

Okay. My loyalty card is stamped "Claude Shannon" and I'm not 
going to whine about certain metaphorical uses of the word 
"entropy." Two examples:
1. "MB DRO ROSHI" The lack of entropy in English permits us to 
guess that a vowel precedes "MB"  which is probably preceded by 
a consonant and that the word is likely four letters long from 
the formatting as it appears in GR.  Less than maximum entropy 
in language is very useful.
2. Maxwell's Demon extracts information as it orders molecules 
in a container thereby decreasing entropy. Both information and 
entropy become small.