Entropy and the Monitoring Problem
Abstract
Entropy is a well-known quantity that is used to describe verious phenomena in physics
and information theory. Like energy or information, entropy cannot be measured directly
and traditionally is used to describe the state of other physical quantities. Recently,
a Russian physicist Anatoly Panchenkov introduced a new, more general, notion of
entropy.
In view of the principle of maximum P-entropy, a system evolves in the direction of its
maximum lifespan , e.g., the life expectancy of humans, or business structures increases.
An important feature of the differential equations that follow from the principle of
maximum P-entropy is that they can be used to describe not only evolution, for example,
as the equation of classical mechanics, but also events.
In this thesis we will investigate how to employ the P-entropy to construct mathematical
models that can be used in the theory of monitoring.