CHANNEL CAPACITY 2)
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The maximum rate (expressed as the number of information units per second) at which a channel can transmit messages with minimal distorsion.
According to C. SHANNON: "If the source is of a simple type, releasing symbols of equal length (as in the case of a teletype for example), if in this source each chosen symbol represents s information bits (freely chosen from 2 symbols) and finally the channel may transmit, let us say, n symbols per second, the capacity C of the channel is then defined as being ns bits per second" (1949).
This is of course a strictly quantitative and numerical measurement, once the needed energy has been used to create the signals. In R.N. ADAMS words: "The channel capacity of a telephone circuit refers to the fact that the physical composition of the circuit can receive only a finite amount of energetic activity over a given period of time" (1988, p.84).
Categories
- 1) General information
- 2) Methodology or model
- 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
- 4) Human sciences
- 5) Discipline oriented
Publisher
Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).
To cite this page, please use the following information:
Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]
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