Equivalently, the Shannon entropy is a measure of the average information content one is missing when one does not know the value of the random variable. The term by itself in this context usually refers to the Shannon entropy, which quantifies, in the sense of an expected value, the information contained in a message, usually in units such as bits. Entropy treats of the distribution of energy. In information theory, entropy is a measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. The concept of entropy is expressed in terms of probability of various states. I always encountered entropy in the sense of Shannon Entropy.
Definition of entropy software#
While software development is immune from almost all physical laws, entropy hits us hard. My favorite definition, with a more practical focus, is found in Chapter 1 of the excellent book The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas: My favorite definition, with a more practical focus, is found in Chapter 1 of the excellent book The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas. That means the more random the text is, the lesser you can compress it. The more the entropy, the lesser the compression ratio. Entropy is an essential and fundamental idea of thermodynamics yet many people, scientists and non-scientists alike, have a major misunderstanding of the concept despite the actual definition of entropy being quite simple: it is the natural log of the number of microstates that describe the macrostate multiplied by Boltzmann's constant. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and. Entropy in data compression may denote the randomness of the data that you are inputing to the compression algorithm. Definition of entropy noun in Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary.