Is there an algorithm for “perfect” compression?

Question

Let me clarify, I\'m not talking about perfect compression in the sense of an algorithm that is able to compress any given source material, I realize that is impossible. What I\

Answer 1

No. It can be proven that there is not even an algorithm to determine how well a perfect compressor will do. See Kolmogorov Complexity.

Huffman coding (or arithmetic coding) by itself does not get close to the best compression. Other techniques need to be used to take advantage of higher order redundancies in the data.