Information Theory - simply explained:

[10:57 Sun,24.January 2021 by Rudi Schmidts]

Even though the topic is a bit off our usual news topics, we could really recommend this particularly fresh article on Medium to anyone who is somewhat interested in the theory behind technology.

Without much mathematical background, the article "An Intuitive Look at the Basics of Information Theory" by Thomas Hikaru Clark tries to explain important concepts behind compression and cryptology with simple examples. And in doing so, illustrates important concepts such as entropy and redundancy without relying on statistical formulae.

Does this picture carry much or little information?

Rather, the many examples chosen really help to understand why (and when) compression can work at all. Or what is behind the Kolmogorov complexity.

By the way, all these terms are not essential for signal transmission or video compression, but are currently at least as widely used in many AI models. Or rather, in the interpretation of them.
So if you want to think outside the box a bit and are looking for a really accessible (but still English) introduction to the fascinating world of information theory, you should definitely take the time to understand this article. Rarely do you get complex ideas served up in such a digestible way.

Bon appétit...

more infos at bei towardsdatascience.com

deutsche Version dieser Seite: Informationstheorie - einfach erklärt: "An Intuitive Look at the Basics of Information Theory"