Re:Animals That Taste Only Saltiness
by bdonlan on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @09:05PM
(#8111902)
No, this is not true, even in digital transmissions.
Consider this digital signal:
0000000000
Let's say there's a 1% chance of a bit flipping. But any one of these 10 bits could flip. So for, say, the third bit to flip there's a 0.1% chance to become 0010000000.
Now, to go back there's still a 0.1% chance - but there's a 0.9% chance that _another_ bit will flip. At which point you need two bit flips to go back to your original value.
As you can see, since errors accumulate, the probability of wandering back to a working version is much lower than that of producing increasingly broken versions instead.
Consider this digital signal:
0000000000
Let's say there's a 1% chance of a bit flipping. But any one of these 10 bits could flip. So for, say, the third bit to flip there's a 0.1% chance to become 0010000000.
Now, to go back there's still a 0.1% chance - but there's a 0.9% chance that _another_ bit will flip. At which point you need two bit flips to go back to your original value.
As you can see, since errors accumulate, the probability of wandering back to a working version is much lower than that of producing increasingly broken versions instead.