Covers encoding and binary digits, entropy, language and meaning, efficient encoding and the noisy channel, and explores ways in which information theory relates to physics, cybernetics, psychology, and art. "Uncommonly good...the most satisfying discussion to be found." -- Scientific American. 1980 edition.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Excellent explanation for the core concepts:
You cannot learn the math of information theory from this book but this book is perfect for you to get the core concepts. An Excellent place to start!
A wonderfully engaging introduction to Information Theory:
This book is a delight to read. It is thoughtfully written so the text flows effortlessly. Everything is described in an intuitive yet concise manner. In fact, despite the technical terms in its title and body, this book is accessible to any casual reader of "popular science" material. The basic concepts of the "amount" of information, coding, information rate, noise, power, signal space, and channel capacity are described so clearly that the book can be an indictment of some of the more technical... more info
Best intro book:
This is by far the best introductory book on info theory. The author has a talent for making difficult concepts easy and interesting. A definite page turner!
Good intro but dated:
The update of this book should have been updated. While it is understandable that at the time of the first print of this book in 1961 the author saw little or no practical use for Shannon's information theory (other than perhaps his channel capacity theorem) it was well known by the second printing in 1980 that it has profound implications in studying biology (and modern technology). For instance in an article published in Nature in 1967, A. L. MacKay showed how the genetic code is highly optimal... more info
