Communication theory - Exposition of fundamentals

Abstract

In any branch of applied mathematics, the vague and ambiguous concepts of a physical problem are given a more refined and idealized meaning. In information theory, one of the basic notions is that of the amount of information associated with a given situation. "Information" here, although related to the everyday meaning of the word, should not be confused with it. In everyday usage, information usually implies something about the semantic content of a message. For the purposes of communication theory, the "meaning" of a message is generally irrelevant; what is significant is the difficulty in transmitting the message from one point to another.