Bit by Bit: A Compressed Exposition of Information Theory by Max Enis ’24

Bit by Bit: A Compressed Exposition of Information Theory by Max Enis ’24, Wednesday October 18, 1:00 – 1:50pm, North Science Building 113, Wachenheim

Abstract: Imagine being told, ‘tomorrow the sun will rise.’ Expected, right? But if you heard ‘tomorrow the US government will collapse,’ you might feel like this was worthwhile information. How do we measure the weight of these revelations? In this talk, we will introduce and motivate the mathematical field of information theory. Our investigation will culminate with a fascinating result in data compression, tying our newly-defined concepts of informational content into the essence of how much we can minimize data. Let’s uncover the secrets of communication and compression- bit by bit!