Many of the methods of physics are vastly more general than their use in that discipline. For example, information theory overlaps with a lot of statistical mechanics, and the latter actually developed first. ET Jaynes wrote a famous paper illustrating the connections. However, each is comprehensible without the language and intuition of the other (though I do not deny that a richer understanding comes from knowing both).

What other methods of physics (particularly those with a statistical or computational bent) have interpretations (Please mention useful introductory texts!) that are completely physics free? I understand that various field theories meet this criterion; any good non-physics introductions?