Claude Shannon and the â€˜Ultimate Machineâ€™

Page 8 of 38:

Claude Shannon's Master Thesis

Claude Elwood Shannon's master thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, was completed in 1937 and many consider it the most important master thesis of the 20^th century. In his thesis Shannon shows how the notions of True and False in Boolean Algebra could be used to simulate the operation of switches in electronic circuits. Thanks to his thesis, the electronic engineers of the time were given a mathematical tool that would help them design electronic circuits more easily. The techniques that Shannon's thesis describe are used in the design of modern electronic circuits even today. This fact alone makes it clear why he is considered the founder of digital computers and digital circuit design theory.

In addition to his innovative master thesis, Shannon is also known as "the father of information theory" because of another paper that he published in 1948 called A Mathematical Theory of Communication, which laid the foundations of information theory and started the digital revolution. Shannon enjoyed a pretty long life and died in 2001, when he was 82 years old. However, in his final years he developed Alzheimer's disease.

Another interesting fact about Shannon is that he built the first wearable computer in order to improve his odds against the roulette. He is also the mind behind the "ultimate machine," the purpose of which is extremely interesting, to say the least. You have a box with a switch on the outside; when you flip the switch the lid of the box opens and a mechanical arm emerges that flips the switch back to the off position and then retracts back inside the box.