In Shannon’s world,

Entropy is the average amount of information produced by a source. It is also the minimum number of bits required, on average, to encode the source without losing any information.

If you receive a 7-bit string, you run the parity checks. The result (called the syndrome) is a binary number from 001 to 111. That number tells you exactly which bit to flip to fix the message.

Introduction To Coding And Information Theory Steven Roman May 2026

In Shannon’s world,

Entropy is the average amount of information produced by a source. It is also the minimum number of bits required, on average, to encode the source without losing any information.

If you receive a 7-bit string, you run the parity checks. The result (called the syndrome) is a binary number from 001 to 111. That number tells you exactly which bit to flip to fix the message.