Randomness is a concept deeply entangled with bioinformatics. A random sequence cannot convey information, in the sense that it could be generated by a recipient merely by tossing a coin. Randomness is therefore a kind of “null hypothesis”; a random sequence of symbols is a sequence lacking all contraints limiting the variety of choice of successive symbols selected from a pool with constant composition (i.e., an ergodic source). Such a sequence has maximum entropy in the Shannon sense; that is, it has minimum redundancy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ramsden, J.J. (2009). Randomness and complexity. In: Bioinformatics. Computational Biology, vol 10. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-257-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-257-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-84800-256-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-84800-257-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)