ChapterZero

I started reading Shannon’s A Mathematical Theory of Communication today. Who knew a seminal paper could be this well-written? It is much better for gaining an intuitive view of the subject than the information theory text I picked up earlier. Also, just about every page contains some titillating connection to a field outside of information theory proper; for example, he brings into play the characteristic equation from finite differences, a graph theoretic reformulation of the necessary conditions for a process to be ergodic, and statements about how the amount of redundancy in a language determines the possibility of forming large crossword puzzles. Apparently English has just enough redundancy at 50% to make large crossword puzzles feasible.