Monday, May 21, 2007
Breaking Network Logjams -- [ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ]: Scientific American
Breaking Network Logjams -- [ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ]: Scientific American: "Bits Are Not Cars
Ahlswede and his colleagues built their proposal in part on the idea, introduced by Shannon, that transmitting evidence about data can actually be more useful than conveying the data directly. They also realized that a receiver would be able to deduce the original data once enough clues had been gathered but that the receiver would not need to obtain all of the evidence emitted. One kind of clue could be replaced by another, and all that was important was receiving some combination of clues that, together, would reveal the original message. (Receivers would be able to make sense of the evidence if they were informed in advance about the rules applied to generate it or if instructions on how to use the evidence were included in the evidence itself.)
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Ahlswede and his colleagues built their proposal in part on the idea, introduced by Shannon, that transmitting evidence about data can actually be more useful than conveying the data directly. They also realized that a receiver would be able to deduce the original data once enough clues had been gathered but that the receiver would not need to obtain all of the evidence emitted. One kind of clue could be replaced by another, and all that was important was receiving some combination of clues that, together, would reveal the original message. (Receivers would be able to make sense of the evidence if they were informed in advance about the rules applied to generate it or if instructions on how to use the evidence were included in the evidence itself.)
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