Negentropy

In information theory and statistics, negentropy is used as a measure of distance to normality. The concept and phrase "negative entropy" was introduced by Erwin Schrödinger in his 1944 popular-science book What is Life?^[1] Later, French physicist Léon Brillouin shortened the phrase to néguentropie (negentropy).^[2]^[3] In 1974, Albert Szent-Györgyi proposed replacing the term negentropy with syntropy. That term may have originated in the 1940s with the Italian mathematician Luigi Fantappiè, who tried to construct a unified theory of biology and physics. Buckminster Fuller tried to popularize this usage, but negentropy remains common.

In a note to What is Life? Schrödinger explained his use of this phrase.

... if I had been catering for them [physicists] alone I should have let the discussion turn on free energy instead. It is the more familiar notion in this context. But this highly technical term seemed linguistically too near to energy for making the average reader alive to the contrast between the two things.

^ Schrödinger, Erwin, What is Life – the Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, Cambridge University Press, 1944
^ Brillouin, Leon: (1953) "Negentropy Principle of Information", J. of Applied Physics, v. 24(9), pp. 1152–1163
^ Léon Brillouin, La science et la théorie de l'information, Masson, 1959

[1] Schrödinger, Erwin, What is Life – the Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, Cambridge University Press, 1944

[2] Brillouin, Leon: (1953) "Negentropy Principle of Information", J. of Applied Physics, v. 24(9), pp. 1152–1163

[3] Léon Brillouin, La science et la théorie de l'information, Masson, 1959

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