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Lecture 1: Introduction to Information Theory

Jakob Foerster
Lectures
YouTube
3 HN users recommended this lecture3 months2018–2024 score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Recommended as an enjoyable, clear introduction to information theory that pairs well with MacKay's free textbook.

The first lecture of David MacKay's Cambridge course on information theory, pattern recognition and neural networks. It introduces the core ideas of his book Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms.

“It was very enjoyable for me to learn the material from his lectures.” (HN, 2020)

3 recommendations · 3 citations · Lectures · intro

6 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@maxov Jun 2020 Recommends
on HN thread Ask HN: What, in your opinion, are the greatest and most useful textbooks?
Had . Unfortunately Professor MacKay passed away from cancer in 2016. We lost a great soul. I concur that his textbook and sense of humor were fantastic. It was very enjoyable for me to learn the material from his lectures. They are a great supplement to the textbook (or maybe vice versa?) and you can find them here: [this video]
Enjoyable lectures that supplement MacKay's textbook.
@samch93 Oct 2021 Recommends
on HN thread Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air (Revised, Community Edition)
It‘s such a tragedy that he died so young. Prof Mackay was a role model who impacted our world in many positive ways (e.g. his work in information theory, Bayesian statistics, environmental science). I recommend his lecture on information theory which is available on youtube [1]. He also documented the progress of his cancer very detailed on his blog [2], which is a very interesting (and sad) read. [1] [this video] [2] [link]
MacKay's lectures on information theory.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@teleforce May 2024 Cites it
on HN thread Reading list to join AI field from Hugging Face cofounder
Thanks for the list. Interesting to see that the book by the late David MacKay made it to the list, it is available to download in several formats from the book's website. Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms: [link] The lectures based on the book by David MacKay himself: [this video] Probably it's not a surprise that the father of information theory Claude Shannon is the earliest one to propose stochastic LLM based on Markov chain.
Lectures by David MacKay based on his book.

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