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Just learning and thinking about the concepts of Information theory are guaranteed to strain your brain (which grows bigger and stronger with exercise) and to change the way at which you look at the world and its many curious phenomena. Just reading this article will change the way that you think. The Free Dictionary offers several terse, but compressed (no pun intended) working definitions of Information Theory : information theory n. The theory of the probability of transmission of messages with specified accuracy when the bits of information constituting the messages are subject, with certain probabilities, to transmission failure, distortion, and accidental additions. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company . Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company . All rights reserved. information theory n (Mathematics) a collection of mathematical theories, based on statistics, concerned with m...

As some of the more advanced members of our growing Braintenance crowd might have guessed based upon enhanced telepathic powers (or by having read the title), this is indeed a post on probability and uncertainty , and on chaos and complexity . All of these are nouns representing ideas or theories based upon observed behaviors, and upon the inherent limitations of observations . When we speak of randomness and probability we generally mean two different things. Essentially, probability is the mathematically determined likelihood (expressed as a decimal, a fraction, a percentage or odds) that an event or an outcome will occur, given parameters. For example, when we toss a coin, the odds are (stop yawning!) 50% that it will land on heads and 50% that it will land on tails. This probability is based upon repeated trials over time. There are two standards -- 1) repeated trials (doing the exercise and observing the result as many times as possible to gain more certainty as to the pro...

We can all safely admit (even to ourselves, if we are not in a confessional or a crowded subway car ) that doing arithmetic computations with eyes closed, from memory and using sheer brain power is a challenge, but one that is a worthwhile undertaking. Here are the answers, as well as some observations, regarding the last posting . That makes this post, which are reading, a post-post posting. Or worse, it could be considered a commentary on a past posting . Alliteration and irony combined tend to produce an excess of spittle...an effect which I enjoy witnessing in others but which I try to avoid inadvertantly engaging in myself. --------------- The following embedded image (although the subject appears wide awake), exemplifies irony: It's now back to the exercise with some answers in RED . Here's a new set of operations to work on in the same manner as you did on the previous set, except that now we will use multiplication and division. Never mind about your third-grade teac...