Logarithmic and power-law entropies from convexity

Abstract

In an attempt to understand the origin and robustness of the Boltzmann/Gibbs/Shannon entropic functional, we adopt a geometric approach and discuss the implications of the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma and of Dvoretzky's theorem on convex bodies for the choice of this functional form. We contrast these results with a more recent result on flowers of balls, which may be interpreted as suggesting the use of power-law entropies for some systems.