Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 224 1 a Solution 2026-09-28
Because and are independent random variables, conditioning on merely translates . The conditional entropy under a deterministic change of variables and the fact that conditioning reduces entropy therefore giveInterchanging and similarly gives , and henceThe proof applies to countable alphabets whenever the displayed information entropies are finite.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 2 12I a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
A one-time pad over the finite additive group uses a key that is uniform on , independent of the plaintext , as long as the plaintext, and never reused. Encryption and decryption are
For independent random variables , conditioning reduces entropy and translation by a known element of the finite additive group preserves entropy, soInterchanging and gives , henceThis is the entropy of a sum of independent finite-group variables.
The result explains why adding independent pad symbols cannot reduce uncertainty. For a uniform pad, is itself uniform and is independent of , which is the perfect-secrecy property. Independence is necessary: if is nonconstant and , then is constant, so
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 164 1 i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The axioms for information entropy give the formula and hence the chain rule for information entropyBecause conditioning reduces entropy, , and thereforeThis is subadditivity of information entropy.
For the entropy submodularity rule, apply the chain rule for information entropy twice:The last quantity is conditional mutual information, whose nonnegativity again expresses that conditioning reduces entropy.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 164 3 i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Letwhere is the golden ratio. If the union-closed family consists of one nonempty set, any element of that set has frequency one, so assume its cardinality exceeds one. Choose independent uniform members and let be their characteristic vectors of sets. Then .
Suppose for a contradiction that every element has frequency . Put , and let , the characteristic vector of a set of . The chain rule for information entropy and conditioning reduces entropy givebecause is a function of .
Fix the two prefixes and setThe two conditioned bits are independent random variables, and exactly when both are zero. The supplied binary entropy product inequality therefore givesAveraging over the independent prefixes yieldswhenever either conditional entropy is positive. Summing and using gives .
But set union keeps inside the union-closed family, so is supported on . The maximum entropy distribution on a finite set gives , a contradiction. Some element must therefore occur in at least members, proving the entropy bound for a union-closed family.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 164 4 i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The Entropic Balog-Szemerédi-Gowers theorem states that for finitely supported random variables in an abelian group,where the left-hand side is the Simultaneous conditional entropic Ruzsa distance.
Put and take two copies and that are conditionally independent given . Thus both sums equal , and, given , and are independent with the required conditional marginals. By conditioning reduces entropy,The two conditional entropies are equal, since either or together with determines the other, and the chain rule for information entropy gives
Set . By entropy submodularity,The first term is by subadditivity of information entropy. Since , we also have , so the second term is at most . Finally determines all four copied variables, and conditional independence givesAs , these estimates implySubtracting the common conditional-entropy term proves the stated Entropic Balog-Szemerédi-Gowers theorem.
Shearer's inequality Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Let be a discrete random vector, and let be a collection of subsets of in which every index occurs at least times. ThenApply the chain rule for information entropy to each projection and use conditioning reduces entropy to compare every term with the corresponding conditional entropy in the full chain rule.
Subadditivity of information entropy Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
The chain rule for information entropy and conditioning reduces entropy givewith equality exactly when and are independent.