The Entropy of a Markov Chain
The Entropy of A Markov ChainA more explicit exampleCasualPhysicsEnjoyerJul 28, 2026102ShareClausius (1865)¹ defines a quantity called entropy. By decomposing physical processes as a chain of engines, he shows that entropy always increases for irreversible processes. For reversible processes like Carnot's ideal engine, the change in entropy is zero.
- ▪The Entropy of A Markov ChainA more explicit exampleCasualPhysicsEnjoyerJul 28, 2026102ShareClausius (1865)¹ defines a quantity called entropy.
- ▪By decomposing physical processes as a chain of engines, he shows that entropy always increases for irreversible processes.
- ▪For reversible processes like Carnot's ideal engine, the change in entropy is zero.
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| Original publisher | Hacker News (Front Page) |
| Canonical URL | https://chillphysicsenjoyer.substack.com/p/the-entropy-of-a-markov-chain |
| Publication time | Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:00:10 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-08-05T14:30:41.580Z |
| Last seen | 2026-08-05T14:30:41.580Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | laqq_4bDJzii · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
The Entropy of A Markov ChainA more explicit exampleCasualPhysicsEnjoyerJul 28, 2026102ShareClausius (1865)¹ defines a quantity called entropy. By decomposing physical processes as a chain of engines, he shows that entropy always increases for irreversible processes. For reversible processes like Carnot's ideal engine, the change in entropy is zero. But when an irreversible process occurs, entropy can never decrease unless energy is applied to a system. This is what is known as the second law of thermodynamics.And whilst entropy itself may not be measurable with a thermometer or ruler, it is still a useful concept since we can calculate derived quantities from it that are directly measurable.I've written previously quite vaguely about 'life as entropy'.
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