Information theory provides a constructive criterion for setting up probability distributions on the basis of partial knowledge, and leads to a type of statistical inference which is called the maximum.entropy estimate. It is the least biased estimate possible on the given information; i.e., it is maximally noncommittal with regard to missing information. If one considers statistical mechanics as a form of statistical inference rather than as a physical theory, it is found that the usual computational rules, starting with the determination of the partition function, are an immediate consequence of the maximum-entropy principle. In the resulting "subjective statistical mechanics," the usual rules are thus justified independently of any physical argument, and in particular independently of experimental verification; whether
This paper has two purposes: 1) to clarify the relationship between the quantum theory of radiation, where the electromagnetic field-expansion coe5cients satisfy commutation relations, and the semiclassical theory, where the electromagnetic field is considered as a definite function of time rather than as an operator; and 2) to apply some of the results in a study of amplitude and frequency stability in a molecular beam maser. In l), it is shown that the semiclassical theory, when extended to take into account both the effect of the field on the molecules and the effect of the molecules on the field, reproduces almost quantitatively the same laws of energy exchange and coherence properties as *
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