Books on Information Theory

[thoughtLeech]

Hi All,

Does anybody have any recommendations for books on Information Theory? The comic on password strength got me interested in the subject and while Amazon has a large selection of books, I was hoping someone here had some good experiences they could share.

Thanks,

[Breakfast]

Computer Security: Art and Science by Matt Bishop might not be exactly what you want but it does cover a large range of topics.

Here's a link to the table of contents:
http://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/book/book-aands/toc.html

As a warning, a few of the chapters are a bit math intensive. However, they are self contained and are not a requirement to understand the content in the chapters that are not.

[axlan]

For a pretty readable introduction you might try An Introduction to Information Theory Symbols, Signals and Noise by John Pierce. It's a quick read, cheap, and does a great job of giving the information in a way that doesn't require a lot of background knowledge.

[thoughtLeech]

Thank you both!

I'll take a look at both of those suggestions.

[filius_nullius]

I highly recommend "Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms" by David MacKay, the book is available online: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/book.html

[Jplus]

A standard work: Elements of Information Theory by Cover and Thomas.

[Nautilus]

A non-academic work that I really enjoyed: "The Information" by James Gleik.
Mostly skimps on the math but gives a really good overview of the history of the subject. Extremely recommended.

[Felstaff]

I highly recommend "Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms" by David MacKay, the book is available online: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mack ... /book.html

I remember reading that book... I'd recommend it too. (and it's free)

[lorb]

A standard work: Elements of Information Theory by Cover and Thomas.

"standard" as in "lengthy, overly detailed, boring and very very correct but it's the bible on the topic"?
(the only "standard work" i ever enjoyed is K&R)

[Jplus]

Lengthy: yes.
Overly detailed: depends on what you want.
Boring: they tried their best but it could be more entertaining.
Very very correct: not entirely sure about that, but most of it should be decent.
Bible on the topic: as far as I'm concerned only Claude Shannon's A mathematical Theory of Communication deserves that title.