# Two inequalities implied by unique decipherability

@article{McMillan1956TwoII,
title={Two inequalities implied by unique decipherability},
author={Brockway McMillan},
journal={IRE Trans. Inf. Theory},
year={1956},
volume={2},
pages={115-116}
}
• B. McMillan
• Published 1 December 1956
• Mathematics
• IRE Trans. Inf. Theory
Consider a list of b words, each word being a string of letters from a given fixed alphabet of a letters. If every string of words drawn from this list, when written out in letters without additional space marks to separate the words, is uniquely decipherable, then $$a^{-l_1} + a^{-l_2} + \cdots + a^{-l_b} \leq 1, \qquad \qquad (1)$$ where l_i, 1 \leq i \leq b , is the length of the i th word in the list. This result extends a remark of J. L. Doob, who derived the…
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