Fromnega- +‎entropy.

Ablend ofnegative +‎entropy, coined by the French physicistLéon Brillouin (1889–1969). The termnegative entropy was introduced by the Austrian physicistErwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) in his bookWhat is Life? (1944, based on lectures delivered in February 1943).^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation)IPA^(key): /ˌnɛɡˈɛntɹɒpi/
• (General American)IPA^(key): /ˌnɛɡˈɛntɹəpi/
• Hyphenation:neg‧en‧tro‧py

negentropy (countable anduncountable,pluralnegentropies)

1. (thermodynamics) Thedifference between theentropy of asystem and themaximum possible entropy of the same system.[from 1950s]
   • 1956 April,Brillouin, Léon, “Summary of Thermodynamics”, inScience and Information Theory, New York, N.Y.:Academic Press,→OCLC, section 2 (The Two Principles of Thermodynamics; Entropy and Negentropy),pages116–117:

     An isolated system containsnegentropy if it reveals a possibility for doing mechanical or electrical work:[…] A tank of compressed gas in a room at atmospheric pressure, a vacuum tank in a similar room, a charged battery, any device that can produce high grade energy (mechanical work) or be degraded by some irreversible process (thermal conduction, electrical resistivity, friction, viscosity) is a source ofnegentropy.[…] If a living organism needs food, it is only for thenegentropy it can get from it, and which is needed to make up for the losses due to mechanical work done, or simple degradation processes in the living system. Energy contained in food does not really matter, since energy is conserved and never gets lost, butnegentropy is the important factor.

   • 1977, Boris G. Kuznetsov,Philosophy of Optimism, Moscow: Progress Publishers, page35:

     The same magnitude, but with a minus sign, i.e., the measure of macroscopic ordering, the measure of non-uniformity in the distribution of heat, the measure of the differences in temperature—temperature gradients—is callednegentropy.

   • 2013, John E. Mayfield, “The Evolution of Complexity”, inThe Engine of Complexity: Evolution as Computation, New York, N.Y.:Columbia University Press,→ISBN,page277:

     Negentropy is the difference between the entropy of a system and the entropy of the same system at equilibrium (i.e., when it has its maximum possible entropy). Since entropy measures the amount of disorder,negentropy measures order.

2. (information theory) The difference between the entropy of aprobability distribution and the maximum possible entropy of the same probability distribution.
   • 1990, Aleksandr I. Zotin, “Thermodynamics of Nonequilibrium Processes”, inThermodynamic Bases of Biological Processes: Physiological Reactions and Adaptations, Berlin, New York, N.Y.:Walter de Gruyter,→ISBN, section 1.3.2 (Maxwell’s Demon and Negentropy Effects),page46:

     Brillouin (1956) made an attempt to link thermodynamic notions to the notions of information theory. To this end he employs the idea of bound information or information consistent with some microstates of a physical system.[…] Brillouin has shown that bound information is equal to entropy decrease ornegentropy increase. This is a so callednegentropy principle of information, according to whichnegentropy can be turned into information and vice versa as follows from (1.103).

• centropy
• disentropy
• entaxy
• extropy

• entropy

• negentropic

• negentropy on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• maximum entropy probability distribution on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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