Paper 1, Section I, G
Part II, 2012
Let and be alphabets of sizes and a respectively. What does it mean to say that is a decodable code? State Kraft's inequality.
Suppose that a source emits letters from the alphabet , each letter occurring with (known) probability . Let be the codeword-length random variable for a decodable code , where . It is desired to find a decodable code that minimizes the expected value of . Establish the lower bound , and characterise when equality occurs. [Hint. You may use without proof the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, that (for positive )
with equality if and only if for all i.]