Recently read: Elements of Information Theory

[jon_leonard]

Elements of Information Theory, by Thomas M. Cover and Joy A. Thomas (second edition

Comments

[freelikebeer]

I love that book.

Information theory has changed the way I look at just about everything [the first question is, "Is it an information problem or not?"] Hard for me to relate it back to others, though.

[jon_leonard]

It does seem oddly difficult to explain. I can think of a few friends that I expect would get it fairly quickly, but not many.

I suspect that it has a lot to do with calculus (or some tricky summations) needing to be almost intuitive for it to work.

I might try explaining maximum-entropy as "allowing for the most surprise".