The theoretical measuring of information was famously initiated by Shannon in his mathematical theory of communication, in which he proposed a now widely used quantity, the entropy, measured in bits. Yet, in the same paper, Shannon also chose to measure the information in continuous systems in nats, which differ from bits by the use of the natural rather than the binary logarithm. We point out that there is nothing natural about the choice of logarithm basis, rather it is arbitrary. We remedy this problematic state of affairs by proposing a genuinely natural measure of information, which we dub gnats. We show that gnats have many advantages in information theory, and propose to adopt the underlying methodology throughout science, arts and everyday life.

翻译：香农在他的数学通讯理论中提出了目前广泛使用的数量,即以位数衡量的酶。 然而,在同一论文中,香农还选择在连续系统中测量信息,这些系统与使用自然对数而非二元对数的位数不同。我们指出,选择对数基础并不自然,而是武断的。我们通过提出真正自然的信息测量方法来纠正这种有问题的状态,我们提出真正自然的信息测量方法,我们把信息当做笑柄。我们表明,在信息理论中,鼻孔具有许多优势,并提议在整个科学、艺术和日常生活中采用基本方法。