Its cousin, lossy compression, is easier to comprehend. Lossy algorithms are used to get music into the popular MP3 format and turn a digital image into a standard JPEG file. They do this by selectively removing bits, taking what scientists know about the way we see and hear to determine which bits we'd least miss. But no one can make the case that the resulting file is a perfect replica of the original.

中文翻译：

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压缩的魔术师：从WinZips到cat GIF，JACOB ZIV的算法数十年来一直使数据消失并重新出现

它的表亲（有损压缩）更容易理解。有损算法用于将音乐转换为流行的MP3格式，并将数字图像转换为标准JPEG文件。他们通过有选择地去除一些位来做到这一点，让科学家了解我们所看到和听到的方式，以确定我们最想念的位。但是没有人能证明生成的文件是原始文件的完美副本。