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ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/iii/paper-66/5/i/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 66 5 i Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For , normalize the remaining probabilities by , . Directly splitting the Shannon entropy sum givesHere is the binary entropy. The Shannon entropy of a distribution on points is at most . For example, nonnegativity of its Kullback-Leibler divergence from the uniform distribution gives . Thus the entropy bound with one prescribed probability isFor , equality holds precisely when the remaining probabilities are all . For , the distribution is deterministic and both sides are zero. The displayed formula is for ; a one-point alphabet simply has zero Shannon entropy.
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