[OT] Re: jmlbeud ceararhtcs
[OT] Re: jmlbeud ceararhtcs
- Subject: [OT] Re: jmlbeud ceararhtcs
- From: Bill Briggs <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 13:26:31 -0300
Not long after Claude Shannon of Bell Labs wrote his famous paper on
information theory (C. E. Shannon, ``A mathematical theory of
communication,'' Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 27, pp. 379-423
and 623-656, July and October, 1948.) in which he used some examples
from the English language to demonstrate the idea, he wrote another
paper that addressed the notion in a more focused way (Shannon,
Cluade E. (1950), "Prediction and Entropy of Printed English", Bell
Sys. Tech. J (3) p. 50-64.).
There was, IIRC, another one called "Entropy and the English
Language" that appeared a short time later. It was a different author
and I have a copy of it in my file cabinet at the office. I can't
recall the author now. In any case, the upshot is that there's enough
redundancy built into the language that correct predictions of
subsequent letters in a given context are highly probable. The
scrambled text circulating takes advantage of this predictability, or
entropy, in English.
If one googles around a bit you can find some discussion of the
subject. An example is here.
http://www.cs.fit.edu/~mmahoney/dissertation/entropy1.html
In the end it's not surprising that we can figure the sentences out.
The error correction, like a CRC check or Hamming code in the digital
world, is built into the language. Most European languages have
similar levels of redundancy (excess information). It would have been
more interesting if Shannon had not used printed language and had
dealt with the phonemic transcription of spoken language instead.
I've been meaning to do this for years, and I suspect that there is
still a lot of redundancy (which is why spoken the word is so robust
to audio quality degradation while remaining comprehensible), but
something less than in written english (because the phonemic
representation is more compact).
- web
At 5:51 PM +0200 21/09/03, Helmut Fuchs wrote:
That's very interesting! The fact in itself AND how this revelation
reaches me.
During the course of the last few days I've been sent variations of
jumbled character texts by several friends in three different
languages!! That sounds like a lot of people are really intrigued
and enjoy experimenting with language themselves.
And it worked in all of these languages (English, German, Dutch)!
For me that's especially surprising, because English doesn't offer
any further aid with capitalization of words, as Dutch and German
do. And, additionally, English and Dutch are foreign languages to me.
Very impressed.
Helmut
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