Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33214150›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020

Machine-learning iterative calculation of entropy for physical systems.

Amit Nir, Eran Sela, Roy Beck, Yohai Bar-Sinai

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
2.7field-weighted citation impact, top 10% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Identification and quantification of irreversibility in stochastic systems.Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP · 2026
    Review
  2. Article
  3. Review
  4. Review
  5. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Amit NirThe School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
Eran SelaThe School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
Roy BeckThe School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; ybarsinai@gmail.com roy@tauex.tau.ac.il.ORCID 0000-0003-3121-4530
Yohai Bar-SinaiThe School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; ybarsinai@gmail.com roy@tauex.tau.ac.il.ORCID 0000-0002-6648-009X
Tel Aviv University · IL

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Characterizing the entropy of a system is a crucial, and often computationally costly, step in understanding its thermodynamics. It plays a key role in the study of phase transitions, pattern formation, protein folding, and more. Current methods for entropy estimation suffer from a high computational cost, lack of generality, or inaccuracy and inability to treat complex, strongly interacting systems. In this paper, we present a method, termed machine-learning iterative calculation of entropy (MICE), for calculating the entropy by iteratively dividing the system into smaller subsystems and estimating the mutual information between each pair of halves. The estimation is performed with a recently proposed machine-learning algorithm which works with arbitrary network architectures that can be chosen to fit the structure and symmetries of the system at hand. We show that our method can calculate the entropy of various systems, both thermal and athermal, with state-of-the-art accuracy. Specifically, we study various classical spin systems and identify the jamming point of a bidisperse mixture of soft disks. Finally, we suggest that besides its role in estimating the entropy, the mutual information itself can provide an insightful diagnostic tool in the study of physical systems.

Indexed as

entropy estimationjammingmachine learningmutual information

Identifiers

PMID33214150
PMCPMC7720104
OpenAlexW3100203070

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.