A Heuristic Study of Temperature: Quantum Circuitry in Thermal Systems

Abstract: Classical thermodynamic singularities at phase transitions and in negative-temperature regimes arise because the equal-a-priori probability postulate overlooks the quantum dynamical complexity required to prepare microstates. We promote bounded dynamical complexity to a postulate and develop Complexity Windowed Thermodynamics (CWT). Introducing a finite complexity budget yields the windowed entropy, an entropy of ignorance that is smooth in energy and monotonically non-increasing in the budget. Smoothness guarantees a finite, continuous effective temperature and a non-negative complexity generation potential, thereby regularizing all classical singularities while recovering standard statistical mechanics as the complexity budget approaches infinity. CWT's generalized first law unveils an information processing work term. From unitary channel geometry we derive universal bounds on action and time: the action consumed must be proportional to the optimal circuit complexity, while the minimum required time is inversely proportional to the effective temperature. The framework unifies phenomena from critical point smoothing to black hole information flow, and predicts that the universe's total generatable complexity and its holographic entropy are of the same order bridging thermodynamics, quantum computation, and gravity.