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Information + signals

Five ranked references. Rank 1 is the default spine, not a requirement to read all five.

1 | Elements of Information Theory

Thomas M. Cover, Joy A. Thomas | Information theory spine | Graduate / advanced undergraduate

Canonical treatment of entropy, mutual information, source/channel coding, typicality, rate-distortion, and network information.

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2 | Signals and Systems

Alan V. Oppenheim, Alan S. Willsky, S. Hamid Nawab | Signals spine | Undergraduate

Core continuous/discrete LTI thinking, convolution, Fourier/Laplace/Z transforms, sampling, feedback, and state-space.

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3 | Discrete-Time Signal Processing, 3rd ed.

Alan V. Oppenheim, Ronald W. Schafer | DSP depth | Upper undergraduate / graduate

Canonical discrete-time filtering, transforms, spectral analysis, and multirate signal processing; full 3rd edition is now on MIT OCW.

Amazon search | Full open current edition

4 | Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms

David J. C. MacKay | Inference bridge | Graduate / advanced undergraduate

Beautiful unification of coding, Bayesian inference, statistical physics, and learning.

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5 | Fundamentals of Statistical Signal Processing, Vol. I: Estimation Theory

Steven M. Kay | Estimation reference | Graduate

Core estimation bounds, MLE/MAP, linear models, Bayesian estimators, and signal-parameter inference.

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  • Discrete-Time Signal Processing, 3rd ed.: Full open current edition: open
  • Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms: Full legal author-hosted text: open