The Many Modern Faces of Entropy (Honours)

Owner	Bachelor Natuur- en Sterrenkunde (joint degree)
Coordinator	Greg Stephens
Part of	Dubbele bachelor Wis- en Natuurkunde, year 2Bachelor Physics and Astronomy (Joint Degree), year 2

Course manual 2020/2021

Course content

First discovered by the founders of thermodynamics, entropy provides a modern and unifying view of physical systems. At its root, entropy is a principled characterization of uncertainty, and our course will cover the following topics:

(1) Uncertainty in temporal evolution from deterministic dynamics. Fixed points, limit cycles and chaotic attractors. Bifurcations. Lyapunov exponents and Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy.  

(2) Uncertainty in the value of a random variable.  Information theory.

(3) Uncertainty in the microstate of a statistical system.  Maxwell's demon and connections between information theory and statistical physics.

Study materials

Literature

• Reading and other instructional material will be supplied during the course

Objectives

• Understanding entropy as a unifying, widely-applicable concept in physics

Teaching methods

• Lecture
• Self-study
• Working independently on e.g. a project or thesis

Learning activities

Attendance

Programme's requirements concerning attendance (TER-B):

• Each student is expected to participate actively in each component of the programme that he/she signed up for. A student that does not attend the first two seminars of a course, will be administratively removed from the seminar group. A request for reregistration for the seminars can be applied to the programme coordinator.
• If a student cannot attend an obligatory component of a programme's component due to circumstances beyond his control, he must report in writing to the relevant teacher as soon as possible. The teacher, if necessary after consulting the study adviser, may decide to issue the student a replacing assignment.
• It is not allowed to miss obligatory commponents of the programme if there is no case of circumstances beyond one's control.
• In case of participating qualitatively or quantitatively insufficiently, the examiner can expel a student from further participation in the programme's component or a part of that component. Conditions for sufficient participation are set down in advance in the course manual.
• In addition to the above mentioned rules, in the first semester of the first year a student should be present in at least 80% of the seminars. Moreover, participation to midterm tests and obligatory homework is required. If the student does not comply with these obligations, the student is expelled from the resit of this course. Students in the double Bachelor's degree programme Mathematics and Physics are exempted from this requirement. In case of personal circumstances, as described in OER-A Article A-6.4, a different study plan will be made in consultation with the study advisor.

Assessment

Item and weight	Details
Final grade
Essay on Entropy	Mandatory
Final Exam
Final grade after retake
Final Exam
Essay on Entropy	Mandatory

Assignments

There will be non-assessed assignments throughout the course.  These may be worked on individually or as a group.  The experience from these assignments will help students prepare for the final exam.

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Processed course evaluations

Below you will find the adjustments in the course design in response to the course evaluations.

Contact information

Coordinator

• Greg Stephens