this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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I had a manager once tell me during a casual conversation with complete sincerity that one day with advancements in compression algorithms we could get any file down to a single bit. I really didn't know what to say to that level of absurdity. I just nodded.
That's the kind of manager that also tells you that you just lack creativity and vision if you tell them that it's not possible. They also post regularly on LinkedIn
You can give me any file, and I can create a compression algorithm that reduces it to 1 bit. (*)
spoiler
(*) No guarantees about the size of the decompression algorithm or its efficacy on other filesHere's a simple command to turn any file into a single b!
u can have everthing in a single bit, if the decompressor includes the whole universe
https://xkcd.com/1381/
Well he's not wrong. The decompression would be a problem though.
Yeah with lossy compression the future is today!
Send him your work: 1 (or 0 ofc)
That’s precisely when you bet on it.
Just make a file system that maps each file name to 2 files. The 0 file and the 1 file.
Now with just a filename and 1 bit, you can have any file! The file is just 1 bit. It's the filesystems that needs more than that.
It's an interesting question, though. How far CAN you compress? At some point you've extracted every information contained and increased the density to a maximum amount - but what is that density?
I think by the time we reach some future extreme of data density, it will be in a method of storage beyond our current understanding. It will be measured in coordinates or atoms or fractions of a dimension that we nullify.
This is a really good question!
I believe the general answer is, until the compressed file is indistinguishable from randomness. At that point there is no more redundant information left to compress. Like you said, the 'information content' of a message can be measured.
(Note that there are ways to get a file to look like randomness that don't compress it)
Maybe they also believe themselves to be father of computing
How to tell someone you don't know how compression algorithms work, without telling them directly.