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Two bits of entropy: In the case of two fair coin tosses, the information entropy in bits is the base-2 logarithm of the number of possible outcomes — with two coins there are four possible outcomes, and two bits of entropy. Generally, information entropy is the average amount of information conveyed by an event, when considering all ...
A related measure is the base-2 logarithm of the number of guesses needed to find the password with certainty, which is commonly referred to as the "bits of entropy". [9] A password with 42 bits of entropy would be as strong as a string of 42 bits chosen randomly, for example by a fair coin toss. Put another way, a password with 42 bits of ...
In computing, entropy is the randomness collected by an operating system or application for use in cryptography or other uses that require random data. This randomness is often collected from hardware sources (variance in fan noise or HDD), either pre-existing ones such as mouse movements or specially provided randomness generators.
Binary entropy is a special case of (), the entropy function. H ( p ) {\displaystyle \operatorname {H} (p)} is distinguished from the entropy function H ( X ) {\displaystyle \mathrm {H} (X)} in that the former takes a single real number as a parameter whereas the latter takes a distribution or random variable as a parameter.
Despite the foregoing, there is a difference between the two quantities. The information entropy Η can be calculated for any probability distribution (if the "message" is taken to be that the event i which had probability p i occurred, out of the space of the events possible), while the thermodynamic entropy S refers to thermodynamic probabilities p i specifically.
If the base of the logarithm is 2, then the unit of uncertainty is the shannon (more commonly known as bit). If it is the natural logarithm, then the unit is the nat. Hartley used a base-ten logarithm, and with this base, the unit of information is called the hartley (aka ban or dit) in his honor. It is also known as the Hartley entropy or max ...
Assume that the combined system determined by two random variables and has joint entropy (,), that is, we need (,) bits of information on average to describe its exact state. Now if we first learn the value of X {\displaystyle X} , we have gained H ( X ) {\displaystyle \mathrm {H} (X)} bits of information.
Although bit is more frequently used in place of shannon, its name is not distinguished from the bit as used in data processing to refer to a binary value or stream regardless of its entropy (information content). Other units include the nat, based on the natural logarithm, and the hartley, based on the base 10 or common logarithm.