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Kolmogorov complexity is the length of the ultimately compressed version of a file (that is, anything which can be put in a computer). Formally, it is the length of a shortest program from which the file can be reconstructed. We discuss the…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2020-04-22 Paul Vitanyi

Kolmogorov complexity theory is used to tell what the algorithmic informational content of a string is. It is defined as the length of the shortest program that describes the string. We present a programming language that can be used to…

Category Theory · Mathematics 2013-06-13 Noson S. Yanofsky

The notion of Kolmogorov complexity (=the minimal length of a program that generates some object) is often useful as a kind of language that allows us to reformulate some notions and therefore provide new intuition. In this survey we…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2011-03-01 Alexander Shen

The Kolmogorov complexity of x, denoted C(x), is the length of the shortest program that generates x. For such a simple definition, Kolmogorov complexity has a rich and deep theory, as well as applications to a wide variety of topics…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2017-02-17 Stephen Fenner , Lance Fortnow

A drawback of Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity (K) as a function from s to the shortest program producing s is its noncomputability which limits its range of applicability. Moreover, when strings are short, the dependence of K on a particular…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2010-12-20 Jean-Paul Delahaye , Hector Zenil

In this paper we give a definition for quantum Kolmogorov complexity. In the classical setting, the Kolmogorov complexity of a string is the length of the shortest program that can produce this string as its output. It is a measure of the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Andre Berthiaume , Wim van Dam , Sophie Laplante

Kolmogorov (1965) defined the complexity of a string $x$ as the minimal length of a program generating $x$. Obviously this definition depends on the choice of the programming language. Kolmogorov noted that there exist \emph{optimal}…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2025-06-23 Bruno Bauwens , Alexander Kozachinskiy , Alexander Shen

We show that classical and quantum Kolmogorov complexity of binary strings agree up to an additive constant. Both complexities are defined as the minimal length of any (classical resp. quantum) computer program that outputs the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-06-09 Markus Mueller

Link prediction in graphs is an important task in the fields of network science and machine learning. We investigate a flexible means of regularization for link prediction based on an approximation of the Kolmogorov complexity of graphs…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-24 Paris D. L. Flood , Ramon Viñas , Pietro Liò

Is it possible to find a shortest description for a binary string? The well-known answer is "no, Kolmogorov complexity is not computable." Faced with this barrier, one might instead seek a short list of candidates which includes a laconic…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2014-02-14 Jason Teutsch

The aim of this note is to provide some reference facts for LZW---mostly from Thomas and Cover \cite{Cover:2006aa} and provide a reference for some metrics that can be derived from it. LZW is an algorithm to compute a Kolmogorov Complexity…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2017-08-01 Giulio Ruffini

Drawing on various notions from theoretical computer science, we present a novel numerical approach, motivated by the notion of algorithmic probability, to the problem of approximating the Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity of short strings. The…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2015-03-13 Fernando Soler-Toscano , Hector Zenil , Jean-Paul Delahaye , Nicolas Gauvrit

The Kolmogorov complexity of a string is the length of its shortest description. We define a second quantised Kolmogorov complexity where the length of a description is defined to be the average length of its superposition. We discuss this…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2008-09-17 Caroline Rogers , Vlatko Vedral , Rajagopal Nagarajan

We introduce a notion of Kolmogorov complexity of unitary transformation, which can (roughly) be understood as the least possible amount of information required to fully describe and reconstruct a given finite unitary transformation. In the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-01-20 Alexei Kaltchenko

A $c$-short program for a string $x$ is a description of $x$ of length at most $C(x) + c$, where $C(x)$ is the Kolmogorov complexity of $x$. We show that there exists a randomized algorithm that constructs a list of $n$ elements that…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2015-01-21 Bruno Bauwens , Marius Zimand

In analogy of classical Kolmogorov complexity we develop a theory of the algorithmic information in bits contained in any one of continuously many pure quantum states: quantum Kolmogorov complexity. Classical Kolmogorov complexity coincides…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Paul Vitanyi

The even online Kolmogorov complexity of a string $x = x_1 x_2 \cdots x_{n}$ is the minimal length of a program that for all $i\le n/2$, on input $x_1x_3 \cdots x_{2i-1}$ outputs $x_{2i}$. The odd complexity is defined similarly. The sum of…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2025-07-15 Bruno Bauwens , Maria Marchenko

We describe an alternative method (to compression) that combines several theoretical and experimental results to numerically approximate the algorithmic (Kolmogorov-Chaitin) complexity of all $\sum_{n=1}^82^n$ bit strings up to 8 bits long,…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2015-03-18 Jean-Paul Delahaye , Hector Zenil

The minimal Kolmogorov complexity of a total computable function that exceeds everywhere all total computable functions of complexity at most $n$, is $2^{n+O(1)}$. If we replace "everywhere" by "for all sufficiently large inputs", the…

Logic · Mathematics 2020-12-29 Alexander Shen

Kolmogorov complexity measures the algorithmic complexity of a finite binary string $\sigma$ in terms of the length of the shortest description $\sigma^*$ of $\sigma$. Traditionally, the length of a string is taken to measure the amount of…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2019-06-14 Cameron Fraize , Christopher P. Porter
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