Inspired by Nature, where storing information is an intrinsic ability of natural systems, here we investigate the capability of interacting systems to transport/store the information generated/exchanged in the interaction process in the form of energy or matter, preserving it over time. In detail, here we test the possibility to consider a fluid as a carrier of information, speculating about how to use such information. The aim of this work is to propose that information theory can be used to enlighten physical observations, even in those cases where the equations describing the phenomenon under investigation are intractable, are affected by a budget of uncertainty that makes their solution not affordable or may not even be known. In this exploratory work, an information theory-based approach is applied to microfluidic data. In detail, the classical study of the fluid flow in a microchannel with obstacles of different geometry is faced by integrating fluid mechanics theory with Shannon’s theory of information, interpreted in terms of thermodynamics. Technically, computational fluid dynamics simulations at Reynolds’ numbers (Re) equal to 1 and 50 were carried out in fluidic channels presenting obstacles with rectangular and semicircular shape, and on the simulated flow fields, the Shannon’s information theory was applied evaluating the fluid dynamics information entropy content. It emerged that the Shannon Entropy (SE) evaluated at the outflow section of the flow channel depends upon the geometric features (i.e., position, shape, aspect ratio) of the obstacles. This suggests an interpretation of the fluid dynamics establishing in a flow channel presenting obstacles in terms of information theory, that can be used to identify a posteriori the geometric features of the obstacles the fluid interacts with. The proposed approach can be applied to flow data at the boundaries of fluid domains of interest to extract information on the process occurring inside a system, without making any appeal to the governing equations of the phenomenon under observation or intrusive measurements.

受到自然的启发，其中存储信息是自然系统的内在能力，在这里我们研究了交互系统以能量或物质的形式传输/存储在交互过程中生成/交换的信息的能力，并随着时间的推移保存这些信息。详细地，我们在这里测试将流体视为信息载体的可能性，并推测如何使用这些信息。这项工作的目的是提出信息论可用于启发物理观察，即使在描述所研究现象的方程难以处理，受到不确定性预算的影响，使他们的解决方案无法负担或可能无法解决的情况下甚至被人知道。在这项探索性工作中，基于信息理论的方法应用于微流体数据。详细，流体力学理论与香农的信息理论相结合，用热力学解释，对具有不同几何形状障碍物的微通道中的流体流动进行经典研究。从技术上讲，雷诺数下的计算流体动力学模拟 (关于) 等于 1 和 50 在具有矩形和半圆形障碍物的流体通道中进行，并在模拟流场上应用香农信息理论评估流体动力学信息熵含量。结果表明，在流道流出部分评估的香农熵 (SE) 取决于障碍物的几何特征（即位置、形状、纵横比）。这表明在流动通道中建立的流体动力学的解释在信息论方面存在障碍，可用于后验识别流体与之相互作用的障碍的几何特征。所提出的方法可以应用于感兴趣的流体域边界处的流动数据，以提取有关系统内部发生的过程的信息，