The Energy of Data

The energy of data is the value of a real function of distances between data in metric spaces. The name energy derives from Newton’s gravitational potential energy which is also a function of distances between physical objects. One of the advantages of working with energy functions (energy statistics) is that even if the observations/data are complex objects, like functions or graphs, we can use their real valued distances for inference. Other advantages will be illustrated and discussed in the talk. Concrete examples include energy testing for normality, energy clustering, and distance correlation. Applications include genome, brain studies, and astrophysics. The direct connection between energy and mind/observations/data is a counterpart of the equivalence of energy and matter/mass in Einstein’s $E = mc^2$.