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information theory
A mathematical theory of information born in 1948 with the publication of Claude Shannon's landmark paper, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication". Its main goal is to discover the laws governing systems designed to communicate or manipulate information, and to set up quantitative measures of information and of the capacity of various systems to transmit, store, and otherwise process information. Among the problems it treats are finding the best methods of using various communication systems and the best methods for separating the wanted information, or signal, from the noise. Another of its concerns is setting upper bounds on what it is possible to achieve with a given information-carrying medium (often called an information channel). The theory overlaps heavily with communication theory but is more oriented toward the fundamental limitations on the processing and communication of information and less oriented toward the detailed operation of the devices used.
Related categories
• COMPUTERS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND CYBERNETICS
• MATHEMATICS
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