From: carl feynman (carlf@atg.com)
Date: Mon Oct 27 1997 - 14:15:43 MST
At 11:37 PM 10/26/97 -0800, you wrote:
>> such a signal would look just like white light, or starlight, or any type
>> of source desired. It would not be decipherable or even detectably
>> artificial unless the transmitting folk wanted it to be. For that
>> matter, any number of "stars" we see could just as well be
transmissions.--
>Umm... I'm not absolutely sure this is true. Would it not show some
>statistical evidence of the multiplexing?
A perfectly compressed signal is indistinguishable from noise. Any
deviation from noise would be an opportunity for further compression. The
thermodynamic and information-theoretic definitions of 'entropy' coincide
to the extent that black-body radiation and a signal that is maximally
compressed look exactly the same. Indeed, I think the term 'entropy' was
coined in the information-theoretic sense for exactly this reason.
--CarlF
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