The Mathematical Theory of Communication
Readers who appreciate the importance of Communication Theory are sometimes puzzled to run across references to Information Theory. Information Theory is a mathematical treatment of what is left after the meanings have been removed from a Communication.[c.]
John Gall • Systemantics. The Systems Bible
SHANNON’S PAPER contained a claim so surprising that it seemed impossible to many at the time, and yet it would soon be proven true. He showed that any digital message could be sent with virtual perfection, even along the noisiest wire, as long as you included error-correcting codes—essentially extra bits of information, formulated as additional 1s
... See moreJon Gertner • The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
(1) All communications could be thought of in terms of information; (2) all information could be measured in bits; (3) all the measurable bits of information could be thought of, and indeed should be thought of, digitally. This could mean dots or dashes, heads or tails, or the on/off pulses that comprised PCM.
Jon Gertner • The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
formulation, the information content of a string of symbols was given by the logarithm of the number of possible symbols from which a given string was chosen.
John Brockman • Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI
The maximum rate at which information can be sent over a channel without errors is known as the channel’s capacity.
Grace Lindsay • Models of the Mind
Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, redefined information so as to exclude the need for a conscious subject. All languages can be broken down into two aspects, syntax (the structure of the language, its form) and semantics (its content, or meaning). Shannon’s genius was to remove semantic meaning, which was not amenable to quantificat
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