MA410 Half Unit
Information Communication and Cryptography
This information is for the 2015/16 session.
Teacher responsible
Dr Andrew Lewis-Pye
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in Applicable Mathematics. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.
Pre-requisites
Students should be taking the course MA407 Algorithms and Computation or have taken an equivalent course to provide a basic knowledge of algorithms, and should have experience with proofs and proof techniques used in pure mathematics.
Course content
This course provides an introduction, for students with a mathematical background, to the applications of mathematics in information theory, coding theory, cryptography, and related areas. The course will cover mathematical aspects of the following topics: Noiseless coding, the Kraft-McMillan criterion, optimal coding, entropy, Shannon's first theorem; Noisy channels, capacity, system entropy; Error-correcting codes, decoding rules, bounds, construction and properties of linear and cyclic codes; Structure of natural languages, redundancy, the frequency table, making and breaking cryptosystems, historic examples; Pu