Information, Entropy, and Progress: A New Evolutionary Paradigm

by Robert U. Ayres

Those in economics, especially thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, cybernetics, information theory, resource use, and evolutionary economic behavior. This book presents an innovative and challenging look at evolution on several scales, from the earth and its geology and chemistry to living organisms to social and economic systems. Applying the principles of thermodynamics and the concepts of information gathering and self- organization, the author characterizes the direction of evolution in each case as an accumulation of "distinguishability" information--a type of universal knowledge.

Genres: Science

Hardcover

First published October 1, 1997

About the author

Robert U Ayres is an American physicist and economist who went to the University of Chicago hoping to study with Fermi, but wrote his doctoral thesis at King’s College London. He has written or co-authored some twenty books and two hundred scholarly papers in a long career in the United States and Europe. He is an emeritus professor based in Paris. He has had a 40-year interest in the Shakespeare authorship.