Claude E. Shannon: Communications as a Statistical Process, 1955

Bring in the Noise

When a message is transmitted through a communication system, the message is altered from its original state by outside additions which the information source, or sender, did not intend to be part of the message. Any changes that are made to a communication signal as it travels through a communication channel are known as noise: static in a radio, distortions of sound in a phone conversation, alteration in shape of images on a television screen are all examples of noise that can compromises the integrity of a communication signal.

Dr. Claude Elwood Shannon. Courtesy MIT Museum.