Morse Code & Information Theory

Shannon entropy, Morse code efficiency, and optimal Huffman coding

Message Encoder

Shannon entropy H:
Morse avg length:
Huffman avg length:
Fixed 5-bit code:5.00
Morse efficiency:
Bits transmitted:
Shannon entropy: H = -Σ pᵢ log₂ pᵢ

Huffman code is optimal — average length within 1 bit of entropy.

Morse code was designed for English by hand in 1838, approaching optimality for common letters (E=·, T=−) but not a prefix-free code.