ABSTRACT

Information has a well-defined meaning in physics. The most fundamental analysis of the nature of information carried out so far originates from and in physics. In physics, the sub-discipline that comes closest to the derived meaning is communication theory. Originating traditionally as it does, communication theory concerns itself primarily with the challenge of information transmission rather than with the problems of information content or meaning. It is abstract in its approach to information, though concerned with the technical characteristics of communication channels independently of the nature of message sources, senders, receivers, or message destinations and coding strategies.