  We draw a certain analogy between the classical information-theoretic problem
of lossy data compression (source coding) of memoryless information sources and
the statistical mechanical behavior of a certain model of a chain of connected
particles (e.g., a polymer) that is subjected to a contracting force. The free
energy difference pertaining to such a contraction turns out to be proportional
to the rate-distortion function in the analogous data compression model, and
the contracting force is proportional to the derivative this function. Beyond
the fact that this analogy may be interesting on its own right, it may provide
a physical perspective on the behavior of optimum schemes for lossy data
compression (and perhaps also, an information-theoretic perspective on certain
physical system models). Moreover, it triggers the derivation of lossy
compression performance for systems with memory, using analysis tools and
insights from statistical mechanics.
