Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-communication-theory-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2009/3/b/solution

Let the probability of the first input be . The two equal output probabilities are , and the third is . Writing for the binary entropy function, the output entropy is , while the conditional entropy is . Therefore
The derivative with respect to is
and the second derivative is in the interior. Thus the unique stationary point is the global maximum. It occurs at , so
The capacity itself is . The maximization is over , not over arbitrary output distributions; keeps the feasible outputs explicit.

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