Shannon's formula and Hartley's rule: A mathematical coincidence?

Olivier Rioul, José Carlos Magossi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Shannon's formula C=1\2log(1+P/N) is the emblematic expression for the information capacity of a communication channel. Hartley's name is often associated with it, owing to Hartley's rule: counting the highest possible number of distinguishable values for a given amplitude A and precision ±Δ yields a similar expression C′=log(1+A/Δ). In the information theory community, the following "historical" statements are generally well accepted: (1) Hartley put forth his rule twenty years before Shannon; (2) Shannon's formula as a fundamental tradeoff between transmission rate, bandwidth, and signal-to-noise ratio came unexpected in 1948; (3) Hartley's rule is an imprecise relation while Shannon's formula is exact; (4) Hartley's expression is not an appropriate formula for the capacity of a communication channel. We show that all these four statements are questionable, if not wrong.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationBayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering, MaxEnt 2014
EditorsAli Mohammad-Djafari, Frederic Barbaresco, Frederic Barbaresco
PublisherAmerican Institute of Physics Inc.
Pages105-112
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9780735412804
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event34th International Workshop on Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering, MaxEnt 2014 - Amboise, France
Duration: 21 Sept 201426 Sept 2014

Publication series

NameAIP Conference Proceedings
Volume1641
ISSN (Print)0094-243X
ISSN (Electronic)1551-7616

Conference

Conference34th International Workshop on Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering, MaxEnt 2014
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityAmboise
Period21/09/1426/09/14

Keywords

  • Hartley's rule
  • Shannon's formula
  • additive noise channel
  • additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN)
  • channel capacity
  • differential entropy
  • signal-to-noise ratio
  • uniform noise channel

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