Category talk:Entropy and information

PROD removed

Removing the PROD deletion template as is my right because I "otherwise object to deletion of the article for any reason".

The Deletion request claimed this category should go because it represents a:

miscategorization due to a basic misunderstanding of what entropy is

Linas, I think I have a reasonable idea of what entropy is, and how thermodynamic entropy relates to information entropy. See for example Information_entropy#Relationship_to_thermodynamic_entropy which I hope you would agree is a reasonable summary. My own views indeed would be close to the E.T. Jaynes camp, Maximum entropy thermodynamics which regards thermodynamic entropy as simply an application of information theoretical entropy. (Even if some chemists appear to persistently disagree, and decry the mention of any connection between the two).

But the point of Wikipedia categories is to group articles which are close in subject. There is a clear split to be made, betweeen articles on entropy which can make sense outside a thermodynamic context; and articles on entropy which only relate to a thermodynamic context. Generally, when browsing the categories people will either be looking for one or the other. It is a distraction and a confusion for people looking for articles related to entropy in the context of signal processing to lump those in together with say the Sackur-Tetrode equation. If you look at at what falls into each category, they really do fall into two distinct sets of articles. Creating the spearate sub-categories makes it much easier to see how complete these categories are. And it's helpful, to give a first compass-indication on what each article might be about.

So even though we actually probably agree with each other on the close connections between "entropy and information" and "entropy in thermodynamics", and maybe the category pages should acknowledge this connection more, perhaps with a reference to the Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory article, nevertheless IMO it is still extremely useful and informative to make the concentration of the articles into two distinct sub-categories, rather than muddling them all together. Jheald 08:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC).