Home > Claude E. Shannon

Shannon began studying electrical engineering and mathematics at the University of Michigan in 1932, and received his Bachelor's degree in 1936. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for graduate school, where he worked on Vannevar BushVannevar Bush ( March 11, 1890 June 30, 1974) was an American scientist. Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Bush was educated at Tufts College, graduating in 1913. He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog's differential analyserThe differential analyser was a mechanical analog computer invented by Vannevar Bush in 1927. It is designed to solve differential equations by integration, using wheel-and-disc mechanisms to perform the integration. The differential analyser was used in, an analog computerAn analog computer ( American English) or analogue computer ( British English) is a form of computer using electronic or mechanical phenomena to model the problem being solved by using one kind of physical quantity to represent another. The term is used i.

He proved several results relating Boolean algebraIn mathematics and computer science, Boolean algebras or Boolean lattices are algebraic structures which "capture the essence" of the logical operations AND, OR and NOT as well as the corresponding set theoretic operations intersection, union and compleme to electronic logic networks (eg, relayA relay is an electromechanical switch that uses an electromagnet to open or close one or many sets of contacts. When a current flows through the induction coil, the resulting magnetic field attracts an armature that is mechanically linked to a moving cons and switches) in his 1937Events January January 1 Anastasio Somoza becomes President of Nicaragua January 11 The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States. January 19 Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, MIT master's thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits , and, with it, essentially founded practical digital circuitDigital circuits are electric circuits based on a number of discrete voltage levels. In most cases there are two voltage levels: one near to zero volts and one at a higher level depending on the supply voltage in use. These two levels are often represente design. Professor Howard GardnerHoward Gardner (born 1943 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA)is a cognitive and educational psychologist based at Harvard University best known for his theory of multiple intelligences. In 1981 he was awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship. His most famous book, of Harvard University, called that thesis "possibly the most important, and also the most famous, master's thesis of the century", and in 1940 it earned Shannon the Alfred Noble American Institute of American Engineers Award . After working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, on genetics, Shannon worked on his PhD in 1940 at MIT. His PhD Thesis is titled An Algebra for Theoretical Genetics . He then worked at Bell Labs until he returned to MIT in the 50s.

In 1948 Shannon published A Mathematical Theory of Communication. This work focuses on the problem of how to reconstruct at a target point the information a sender has transmitted. In this fundamental work he used tools in randomized analysis and large deviations , which were in their nascent development stages at that time. Shannon developed information entropy as a measure for redundancy while essentially inventing information theory. His later book with Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, is brief and surprisingly accessible to the non-specialist. Another notable paper published in 1949 is Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems, which essentially founded the mathematical theory of cryptography. He is also credited with the introduction of the Sampling Theory , which is concerned with representing a continuous-time signal from a (uniform) discrete set of samples.

Shannon is known for his thinking prowess; many have testified that he was able to write entire academic papers by dictating from memory alone, without correction. He was known to rarely scribble his thoughts on paper or blackboard, preferring to work everything out in his head. Outside of his academic pursuits, Shannon was interested in juggling, unicycling, and chess. He also invented many devices, including a chess-playing machine, a rocket-powered pogo stick, and a flame-throwing trumpet for a science exhibition. He met his wife Betty Shannon when she was a numerical analyst at Bell Labs.

From 1958 to 1978 he was a Professor at MIT. To commemorate his achievements, there were celebrations of his work in 2001, and there are currently 3 copies of a statue of Shannon: one at the University of Michigan, one at MIT and one at Bell Labs.