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Solving Wordle using information theory

3Blue1Brown · 11.8M views · 2022-02-06 · 30:38

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Overview

3Blue1Brown uses Wordle as an excuse to teach information theory and entropy, building a solver that picks guesses by expected information and incorporating word frequencies.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as the go-to explanation of optimal Wordle openers like CRANE and a friendly introduction to information theory, also relevant to Mastermind.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2022–2024

Topics

Information theory & signal processingRecreational & visual mathAlgorithms & data structures
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wordleentropyinformation theory3blue1brownsolver

What people said

bnycum · 2023-08 · Recommendation

Reminds me of the 3Blue1Brown video about Wordle, and then it's followup video. I guess that's kind of a spoiler, but still worth a watch. [VIDEO] [LINK]

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dowakin · 2022-02 · Recommendation

If you wonder why in the demo author uses `crane` as first guess - check out recent video from 3Blue1Brown [VIDEO]

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bschne · 2024-01 · Reference

ICYMI, 3blue1brown (Grant Sanderson) has a video applying information theory to solving Wordle, which is conceptually similar to mastermind -- [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by 3Blue1Brown, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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