Information

Shannon (A Mathematical Theory of Communication) proposed a mathematical definition of INFORMATION as the amount of uncertainty reduction in a signal, which he discussed in terms of entropy removed by a signal.

To Shannon, the receiver of information could be described as having some prior state of uncertainty. That is, the receiver already knew something, and new information merely removed some, not necessarly all, of the receiver’s uncertainty.

The receiver’s prior state of knowledge or uncertainty can be used to compute such things ad the limits to how much information can be transmitted in a signal, the minimum amount of signal to correcto for noise, and the maximum data compression possible.