United States
Claude Shannon
said
Omni: Do you find it depressing that chess computers are getting so strong? Shannon: I am not depressed by it. I am rooting for the machines!
— Omni Magazine (August 1987)
Claude Shannon
American mathematician and information theorist (1916–2001)
- Fame59.1
- Momentum0.0
- United States rank#119
Source-basedFalling
- Fame59.1
- Momentum0.0
- United States rank#119
- Academics rank#247
- Wikipedia63.5K
Lived 1916–2001, aged 85United States
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Updated 2026-06-09
He proved that ones and zeros could think. Shannon's master's thesis — written at 21 — showed how Boolean algebra could build any logical circuit, a blueprint that made every digital device possible. His 1948 paper then defined information itself as a mathematical quantity, launching the field that undergirds the Internet, encryption, compression, and the ph
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Shannon dual-degreed in electrical engineering and mathematics at the University of Michigan in 1936, then arrived at MIT for a master's. His 1937 thesis demonstrated that electrical circuits using Boolean algebra could construct any logical relationship — the theory behind all digital computing, called by some the most important master's thesis ever written. He earned his PhD in mathematics in 1940, then spent World War II on cryptanalysis for the U.S., writing foundational work that closed classical cryptography and opened the modern era. In 1948 he published "A Mathematical Theory of Commun…
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Sourced, dated quotes from Claude Shannon
Claude Shannon
said
My greatest concern was what to call it.
— Scientific American (1971), volume 225, page 180.
Claude Shannon
said
This duality can be pursued further and is related to a duality between past and future and the notions of control and knowledge.
— "Coding Theorems for a Discrete Source With a Fidelity Criterion". IRE International Convention Records, volume 7, pp. 142--163, 1959.
Claude Shannon
said
A few first rate research papers are preferable to a large number that are poorly conceived or half-finished.
— IRE Transactions on Information Theory (1956), volume 2, issue 1, page 3. .
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