Negentropy: Difference between revisions

In [[information theory]] and [[statistics]], '''negentropy''' is used as a measure of distance to normality. The concept and phrase "'''negative entropy'''" was introduced by [[Erwin Schrödinger]] in his 1944 popular-science book ''[[What is Life? (Schrödinger)|What is Life?]]''<ref>Schrödinger, Erwin, ''What is Life – the Physical Aspect of the Living Cell'', Cambridge University Press, 1944</ref> Later, [[Léon Brillouin]] shortened the phrase to ''negentropy''.<ref>Brillouin, Leon: (1953) "Negentropy Principle of Information", ''J. of Applied Physics'', v. '''24(9)''', pp. 1152–1163</ref><ref>Léon Brillouin, ''La science et la théorie de l'information'', Masson, 1959</ref> In 1974, [[Albert Szent-Györgyi]] proposed replacing the term ''negentropy'' with ''syntropy''. That term may have originated in the 1940s with the Italian mathematician [[Luigi Fantappiè]], who tried to construct a unified theory of [[biology]] and [[physics]]. [[Buckminster Fuller]] tried to popularize this usage, but ''negentropy'' remains common.