Polynomial Functors and Shannon Entropy

Abstract: Past work shows that one can associate a notion of Shannon entropy to a Dirichlet polynomial, regarded as an empirical distribution. Indeed, entropy can be extracted from any

d i n m a t h s f D i r

by a two-step process, where the first step is a rig homomorphism out of

m a t h s f D i r

, the emph{set} of Dirichlet polynomials, with rig structure given by standard addition and multiplication. In this short note, we show that this rig homomorphism can be upgraded to a rig emph{functor}, when we replace the set of Dirichlet polynomials by the emph{category} of ordinary (Cartesian) polynomials. In the Cartesian case, the process has three steps. The first step is a rig functor

m a t h b f {P o l y}^{m a t h b f C a r t} o m a t h b f P o l y

sending a polynomial

p

to

d o t p m a t h c a l y

, where

d o t p

is the derivative of

p

. The second is a rig functor

m a t h b f P o l y o m a t h b f S e t i m e s m a t h b f {S e t}^{e x t o p}

, sending a polynomial

q

to the pair

(q (1), G a m m a (q))

, where

G a m m a (q) = m a t h b f P o l y (q, m a t h c a l y)

can be interpreted as the global sections of

q

viewed as a bundle, and

q (1)

as its base. To make this precise we define what appears to be a new distributive monoidal structure on

m a t h b f S e t i m e s m a t h b f {S e t}^{e x t o p}

, which can be understood geometrically in terms of rectangles. The last step, as for Dirichlet polynomials, is simply to extract the entropy as a real number from a pair of sets

(A, B)

; it is given by

l o g A - l o g s q r t [A] B

and can be thought of as the log aspect ratio of the rectangle.

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(1)

Dirichlet Polynomials form a Topos

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