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The entropy of a probability density function (PDF)
is
defined as
where lg
denotes the logarithm base 2. The entropy of
can
be interpreted as the average number of bits needed to specify random
variables
drawn at random according to
:
The term
lg
can be viewed the number of bits which should
be assigned to the value
. (The most common values of
should
be assigned the fewest bits, while rare values can be assigned many
bits.)
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