Measuring Information

Quantity of information

What is communication?

What is information?

Quantifying information

Quantifying information (details)

Information and Uncertainty

Quantifying information (continued)

Entropy

Value of information

Amount versus value

Gould's measure


Other resources

Carl T. Bergstrom


Contact Information

cbergst@u.washington.edu

Department of Zoology
University of Washington
Box 351800
Seattle, WA 98195-1800

Information and Communication

A brief digression: information and uncertainty

Uncertainty can be seen as the flip side of information.

If we receive a message that allows us to distinguish between k equally likely alternatives, we are said to have acquired log(k) units of information. Analogously, if we do not know which of k equally likely possibilities is realized, we face log(k) units of uncertainty.

Notice that because of this relationship between uncertainty and information, we can write:

Initial uncertainty - final uncertainty = information acquired

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Last modified April 2, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Carl T. Bergstrom