I can never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I can understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way through I cannot understand.
Lord KelvinRead
Information: the negative reciprocal value of probability.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the relationship between information and probability in a mathematical context.
Claude Shannon's quote succinctly describes how information can be quantified in relation to probability. By viewing information as the negative reciprocal of probability, it highlights the idea that as an event becomes more likely, the amount of new information it provides decreases, thus bridging concepts of uncertainty, knowledge, and communication in the fields of information theory and statistics.
Themes
InformationProbabilityCommunicationKnowledgeUncertainty
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on information theory, discussing the foundational ideas of Claude Shannon.
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