  We apply statistical mechanics to an inverse problem of linear mapping to
investigate the physics of the irreversible compression. We use the replica
symmetry breaking (RSB) technique with a toy model to demonstrate the Shannon's
result. The rate distortion function, which is widely known as the theoretical
limit of the compression with a fidelity criterion, is derived using the Parisi
one step RSB scheme. The bound can not be achieved in the sparsely-connected
systems, where suboptimal solutions dominate the capacity.
