Date Created: 1957-06-17

Creator: Jaynes, E. T.

Contributor(s): Everett, Hugh, annotator

Description: One of the most successful physicists of the generation immediately before Hugh Everett III, E. T. Jaynes shared both Everett's interest in applications of information theory to physics and his foundational orientation. But whereas Everett focused on quantum mechanics, much of Jaynes' work concerned how to use information theory in thermodynamics. This letter is a response to comments Everett made on Jaynes' paper "Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics," Physical Review, 106, 620-630 (1957). Jaynes claims his theory of information in statistical mechanics Is similar to Everett's theory (Everett seems to have included a preprint of his forthcoming Reviews of Modern Physics article with his letter to Jaynes). Everett is not convinced, as is clear from his marginal comments on the letter.

Permanent Link To This Item: http://hdl.handle.net/10575/1158

Title: E.T. Jaynes letter to Hugh Everett, 17-June-1957

Subjects: Everett, Hugh III | E. T. Jaynes | Philosophy of Science | Information Theory in Physics

Type: Archives and Manuscripts

Language: en_US

Rights: This material is provided for private study, scholarship, or research. Transmission or reproduction of any material protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners and Professor Jeffrey A. Barrett. The author(s) of the material or their heirs retain copyright to this material.

Used with the permission of the copyright holder and the estate of Hugh Everett, III.

Provenance: This document was found in the basement of Mark Everett in 2007 by Mark Everett and Peter Byrne.

Publisher: University of California, Irvine Libraries. Irvine, California 92623-9557. http://www.lib.uci.edu.