Information Theory

Claude Shannon SM ’40, PhD ’40, faculty

Shannon’s 1948 landmark paper, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” proposed that any message could be transmitted as a string of 1’s and 0’s. The paper also coined the term “bits” for “binary digits,” described the maximum transmission rate for a given communications channel—bandwidth, as it’s called today—and proposed strategies for error-free delivery. His revolutionary ideas stimulated the technologies that are the foundation of today’s information age.