Is entropy useful outside of thermodynamics?
All physical systems obey the laws of thermodynamics. The challenge is to express these laws in simple but general forms so that their significance in, for example, a biological system gives insight. Besides, laws similar to the Second Law of Thermodynamics are found in abstract systems governed more by mathematics than physics — two examples discussed in the course are computers and communications systems. In these contexts the “information” part of “Information and Entropy” is important.
