Description
The BSC is a binary channel; that is, it can transmit only one of two symbols (usually called 0 and 1). (A non-binary channel would be capable of transmitting more than 2 symbols, possibly even an infinite number of choices.) The transmission is not perfect, and occasionally the receiver gets the wrong bit.
This channel is often used by theorists because it is one of the simplest noisy channels to analyze. Many problems in communication theory can be reduced to a BSC. Conversely, being able to transmit effectively over the BSC can give rise to solutions for more complicated channels.
Read more about this topic: Binary Symmetric Channel
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The type of fig leaf which each culture employs to cover its social taboos offers a twofold description of its morality. It reveals that certain unacknowledged behavior exists and it suggests the form that such behavior takes.”
—Freda Adler (b. 1934)