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An Examination of Information Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Yehoshua Bar-Hillel
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel*
Affiliation:
Research Laboratory of Electronics Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts Now at Hebrew University, Jerusalem
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Extract

One of the tasks with which communication engineers are presented is that of devising a mechanism by which a significant sequence of words, a message, produced by somebody, the sender of the message, is reproduced at some other place, with the shortest practical time lag. The reproduction must be such that the receiver of the message will be able to understand what the sender meant by his message, at least, if he knows the sender's language (or, perhaps, his specific use of the language). The following illustration is typical: A writes on a sheet of paper “I love you” and wishes that B, 3000 miles away, should become aware of the full content of this message, with little delay and at a low cost. There will be institutions, in a capitalistic society, which will compete with each other in providing A, for a price, with the required service. Those companies which perform these services most satisfactorily, i.e., with an overall better combination of faithfulness, time lag, and cost, will get the job. The executives of these companies will hire engineers and put them to work on improving this overall combination.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 1955 , pp. 86 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1955

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Footnotes

*

This work was supported in part by the Signal Corps; the Office of Scientific Research, Air Research and Development Command; and the Office of Naval Research.

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