[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > | Let me rephrase my sequence. Create a sequence of 256 consecutive > | bytes, with the first byte having the value of 0, the second byte the > | value of 1, ... and the last byte the value of 255. If you measure > | the entropy (according to Shannon) of that sequence of 256 bytes, you > | have maximum entropy. > > Shannon entropy is a property of a *source*, not a particular sequence > of values. The entropy is derived from a sum of equivocations about > successive outputs. > > If we read your "create a sequence...", then you've described a source - > a source with exactly one possible output. All the probabilities will > be 1 for the actual value, 0 for all other values; the equivocations are > all 0. So the resulting Shannon entropy is precisely 0.
Shannon information certainly falls to zero as the probability with which a message is expected approaches 1. Kolmogorov-Chaitin information cannot fall to zero, though it can get exceedingly small. In either case, though, I suspect we're in agreement on what entropy means, but Mr. Perez is not familiar with the same definitions that the rest of us are using. Perry --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
