English

Combinatorial information distance

Discrete Mathematics 2010-10-19 v5 Information Theory math.IT

Abstract

Let A|A| denote the cardinality of a finite set AA. For any real number xx define t(x)=xt(x)=x if x1x\geq1 and 1 otherwise. For any finite sets A,BA,B let δ(A,B)\delta(A,B) == log2(t(BAˉA))\log_{2}(t(|B\cap\bar{A}||A|)). We define {This appears as Technical Report # arXiv:0905.2386v4. A shorter version appears in the {Proc. of Mini-Conference on Applied Theoretical Computer Science (MATCOS-10)}, Slovenia, Oct. 13-14, 2010.} a new cobinatorial distance d(A,B)d(A,B) == max{δ(A,B),δ(B,A)}\max\{\delta(A,B),\delta(B,A)\} which may be applied to measure the distance between binary strings of different lengths. The distance is based on a classical combinatorial notion of information introduced by Kolmogorov.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0905.2386,
  title  = {Combinatorial information distance},
  author = {Joel Ratsaby},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.2386},
  year   = {2010}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:02:22.765Z