This textbook introduces thermodynamics with a modern approach, starting from four fundamental physical facts (the atomic nature of matter, the indistinguishability of atoms and molecules of the same species, the uncertainty principle, and the existence of equilibrium states) and analyzing the behavior of complex systems with the tools of information theory, in particular with Shannon's measure of information (or SMI), which can be defined on any probability distribution. SMI is defined and its properties and time evolution are illustrated, and it is shown that the entropy is a particular...

This textbook introduces thermodynamics with a modern approach, starting from four fundamental physical facts (the atomic nature of matter, the indistinguishability of atoms and molecules of the same species, the uncertainty principle, and the existence of equilibrium states) and analyzing the behavior of complex systems with the tools of information theory, in particular with Shannon's measure of information (or SMI), which can be defined on any probability distribution. SMI is defined and its properties and time evolution are illustrated, and it is shown that the entropy is a particular...