Reference. Compositional thermostatics
We define a thermostatic system to be a convex space of states together with a concave function sending each state to its entropy, which is an extended real number. This definition applies to classical thermodynamics, classical statistical mechanics, quantum statistical mechanics, and also generalized probabilistic theories of the sort studied in quantum foundations. It also allows us to treat a heat bath as a thermostatic system on an equal footing with any other. We construct an operad whose operations are convex relations from a product of convex spaces to a single convex space and prove that thermostatic systems are algebras of this operad. This gives a general, rigorous formalism for combining thermostatic systems, which captures the fact that such systems maximize entropy subject to whatever constraints are imposed upon them.
Cite
Cited by (1)
Fundamental Components of Deep Learning: A category-theoretic approach gavranovicFundamentalComponentsDeep
Deep learning, despite its remarkable achievements, is still a young field. Like the early stages of many scientific disciplines, it is marked by the discovery of new phenomena, ad-hoc design decisions, and the lack of a uniform and compositional mathematical foundation. From the intricacies of the implementation of backpropagation, through a growing zoo of neural network architectures, to the new and poorly understood phenomena such as double descent, scaling laws or in-context learning, there are few unifying principles in deep learning. This thesis develops a novel mathematical foundation for deep learning based on the language of category theory. We develop a new framework that is a) end-to-end, b) unform, and c) not merely descriptive, but prescriptive, meaning it is amenable to direct implementation in programming languages with sufficient features. We also systematise many existing approaches, placing many existing constructions and concepts from the literature under the same umbrella. In Part I we identify and model two main properties of deep learning systems parametricity and bidirectionality by we expand on the previously defined construction of actegories and Para to study the former, and define weighted optics to study the latter. Combining them yields parametric weighted optics, a categorical model of artificial neural networks, and more. Part II justifies the abstractions from Part I, applying them to model backpropagation, architectures, and supervised learning. We provide a lens-theoretic axiomatisation of differentiation, covering not just smooth spaces, but discrete settings of boolean circuits as well. We survey existing, and develop new categorical models of neural network architectures. We formalise the notion of optimisers and lastly, combine all the existing concepts together, providing a uniform and compositional framework for supervised learning.
Cites 26 works (1 here)
With notes (1)
Network Models baez-2017-network
Networks can be combined in various ways, such as overlaying one on top of another or setting two side by side. We introduce “network models” to encode these ways of combining networks. Different network models describe different kinds of networks. We show that each network model gives rise to an operad, whose operations are ways of assembling a network of the given kind from smaller parts. Such operads, and their algebras, can serve as tools for designing networks. Technically, a network model is a lax symmetric monoidal functor from the free symmetric monoidal category on some set to , and the construction of the corresponding operad proceeds via a symmetric monoidal version of the Grothendieck construction.
External (25)
- A diagrammatic view of differential equations in physics (2023)
- Operadic Modeling of Dynamical Systems: Mathematics and Computation (2022)
- Compositional modeling with stock and flow diagrams (2022)
- Operads for complex system design specification, analysis and synthesis (2021)
- Statistical Mechanics of Lattice Systems: A Concrete Mathematical Introduction (2017)
- Thermodynamics and the structure of quantum theory (2017)
- Set Operads in Combinatorics and Computer Science (2015)
- The Legendre-Fenchel transform from a category theoretic perspective (2015)
- Convex spaces I: definition and examples (2015)
- 100th anniversary of the Sackur–Tetrode equation (2013)
- Categories for the Working Mathematician (2013)
- Convex analysis and thermodynamics (2013)
- The operad of wiring diagrams: formalizing a graphical language for databases, recursion, and plug-and-play circuits (2013)
- Entropy and information causality in general probabilistic theories (2010)
- Convexity, duality and effects (2010)
- Entropy in general physical theories (2010)
- The homology of the little disks operad (2006)
- Operads in Algebra, Topology and Physics (2002)
- Elements of Information Theory (1999)
- Convexity and mixtures (1977)
- Monadic functors and convexity (1974)
- The Geometry of Iterated Loop Spaces (1972)
- On subadditivity and convexity properties of thermodynamic functions (1970)
- On the quasivariety of convex subsets of affine spaces (1970)
- Postulates for the barycentric calculus (1949)