Why Maximum Entropy?

Invited talk at the APS (March meeting in Denver, 2014). Here I basically describe in a nutshell the key ideas behind our Reviews of Modern Physics (2013) and our PRL (2013). This talk is focused on the principle of maximum entropy, how it applies to dynamics and the consequences of rejecting the MaxEnt principle in model selection. It is a short talk and I may post a longer version of it that I should be giving at IU in the near future. The topics are: (0-7:55) Intro, Boltzmann and Shannon (7:55) Shore and Johnson Axioms (12:17) Maximum entropy and dynamics: the principle of maximum caliber (19:45) Some applications of maximum entropy applied to dynamical systems (21:52) The Tsallis entropy and the logical implications of rejecting the MaxEnt principle (26:45) Concluding remarks and references I apologize if it sounds a tiny bit rambly for a few slides at first (up to about 8 min.). I was trying to get over the awkwardness of talking into my screen :) I will try to respond to technical comments/questions a much as possible.