3 ms·
Is there an annotated version or walk through of this paper available or something? I've read it a few times before but I couldn't really understand what's so g
by ackbar03 5y ago
Is there an annotated version or walk through of this paper available or something? I've read it a few times before but I couldn't really understand what's so ground breaking about it. It could be because the more detailed and technical stuff I couldn't grasp that well, I understood high level the kind of model of information theory he was talking about but I'm pretty sure just that by itself isn't what made it so groundbreaking at the time
- Isamu 5y agoIt wasn’t like there were other theories of information at the time. He established a very neat theory for the first time, and showed a very intriguingly idea of entropy that proceeded naturally from it. He showed how the information a channel can transmit is related to the bandwidth. He showed how you can estimate the entropy of languages. If this seems obvious to you and not remarkable it is only because of hindsight, because his insights have been absorbed into the common culture.
- kqr 5y agoAs the other reply to your comment said: the high level things you understand were groundbreaking at the time. The fact that arbitrary data can be encoded as bits? Minds blown! What passes for mundane obviousness today was once a strike of genius nobody else saw coming. And that's part of what makes the paper so groundbreaking, too. Some things are groundbreaking in terms of explanatory power but don't make it into the fabric of society. What Shannon's paper did was essentially weave the fabric of the digitally powered society. And it did it so successfully that you think of it as obvious banalities today.