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A mind at play : how Claude Shannon invented the information age

Title
A mind at play : how Claude Shannon invented the information age / Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman.
Author
Soni, Jimmy
Publication
  • New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2017.
  • ©2017

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TextUse in library JFE 17-7915Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Additional Authors
Goodman, Rob
Description
xv, 366 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 24 cm
Summary
  • Chronicles the life and times of the lesser-known Information Age intellect, revealing how his discoveries and innovations set the stage for the digital era, influencing the work of such collaborators and rivals as Alan Turing, John von Neumann and Vannevar Bush.
  • "The life and times of one of the foremost intellects of the twentieth century: Claude Shannon--the architect of the Information Age, whose insights stand behind every computer built, email sent, video streamed, and webpage loaded. Claude Shannon was a groundbreaking polymath, a brilliant tinkerer, and a digital pioneer. He constructed a fleet of customized unicycles and a flamethrowing trumpet, outfoxed Vegas casinos, and built juggling robots. He also wrote the seminal text of the digital revolution, which has been called 'the Magna Carta of the Information Age.' His discoveries would lead contemporaries to compare him to Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. His work anticipated by decades the world we'd be living in today--and gave mathematicians and engineers the tools to bring that world to pass. In this elegantly written, exhaustively researched biography, Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman reveal Claude Shannon's full story for the first time. It's the story of a small-town Michigan boy whose career stretched from the era of room-sized computers powered by gears and string to the age of Apple. It's the story of the origins of our digital world in the tunnels of MIT and the 'idea factory' of Bell Labs, in the 'scientists' war' with Nazi Germany, and in the work of Shannon's collaborators and rivals, thinkers like Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Vannevar Bush, and Norbert Wiener. And it's the story of Shannon's life as an often reclusive, always playful genius. With access to Shannon's family and friends, A Mind at Play brings this singular innovator and creative genius to life."--Jacket.
Subject
  • Shannon, Claude Elwood, 1916-2001
  • Mathematicians > United States > Biography
  • Electrical engineers > United States > Biography
  • Information theory
  • Electrical engineers
  • Mathematicians
  • BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Science & Technology
  • COMPUTERS / Information Theory
  • TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / History
  • United States
Genre/Form
  • Biographies.
  • Biography.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-346) and index.
Contents
Gaylord -- Ann Arbor -- The room-sized brain -- MIT -- A decidedly unconventional type of youngster -- Cold Spring Harbor -- The labs -- Princeton -- Fire control -- A six-day workweek -- The unspeakable system -- Turing -- Manhattan -- The utter dark -- From intelligence to information -- The bomb -- Building a bandwagon -- Mathematical intentions, honorable and otherwise -- Wiener -- A transformative year -- TMI -- "We urgently need the assistance of Dr. Claude E. Shannon" -- The man-machines -- The game of kings -- Constructive dissatisfaction -- Professor Shannon -- Inside information -- A gadgeteer's paradise -- Peculiar motions -- Kyoto -- The illness -- Aftershocks.
Call Number
JFE 17-7915
ISBN
  • 9781476766683
  • 1476766681
  • 9781476766690
  • 147676669X
LCCN
2016050944
OCLC
962009552
Author
Soni, Jimmy, author.
Title
A mind at play : how Claude Shannon invented the information age / Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman.
Publisher
New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2017.
Copyright Date
©2017
Edition
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-346) and index.
Added Author
Goodman, Rob, author.
Other Form:
Online version: Soni, Jimmy. Mind at play. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2017 9781476766706 (DLC) 2016051979
Research Call Number
JFE 17-7915
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