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Shannon (unit)

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The shannon (symbol Sh), also known as a bit, is a unit of information and of entropy defined by IEC 80000-13. One shannon is the information content of an event occurring when its probability is one half.[1] It is also the entropy of a system with two equiprobable states. If a message is made of a sequence of bits, with all possible bit strings equally likely, the message's information content expressed in shannons is equal to the number of bits in the sequence.[2] For this and historical reasons, a shannon is more commonly known as a bit, despite that "bit" is also used as a unit of data (or of computer storage, equal to 1/8 of a byte).[3]

1 Sh ≈ 0.693 nat ≈ 0.301 Hart.

The shannon is named after Claude Shannon.

See also

References

  1. ^ "IEC 80000-13:2008". International Organization for Standardization. Retrieved 21 July 2013.
  2. ^ "shannon", A Dictionary of Units of Measurement
  3. ^ "bit", A Dictionary of Units of Measurement
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