Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms (2003)
Great book by a great teacher. I read this during my masters and was my route into machine learning.<p>David did many great things but sadly passed away too young in 2016, surely would have continued to have a great positive impact in the world had he lived longer. His other projects included the sustainable energy book <a href="https://www.withouthotair.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.withouthotair.com/</a> and information theory inspired keyboard software for people with severe disabilities <a href="https://www.bltt.org/software/dasher/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bltt.org/software/dasher/</a><p>I had the honour of being a PhD student in Cambridge during his last year of life, and saw him give talks a few times in our lab. It's truly a remarkable experience to see someone who is a passionate explainer in action. Like how I imagine it must have been to see Feynman in the flesh.<p>This is a great short video to get a feel for his style of explaining: <a href="https://youtu.be/UR8wRSp2IXs" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/UR8wRSp2IXs</a><p>(Writing this post feels wrong because he's had such a positive impact on my life and those of many others, and this post definitely can't do it justice)