4 ms·

Claude Shannon: The Bit Player

92 points by mxfh 7y ago

allan_golds 7y ago
Unclosable pop-up
legohead 7y ago
The Idea Factory was a pretty enlightening book. I never realized how important Bell Labs was in our technological history. They purposely sought out the best minds and gave them freedom to find the next great tech.
- cbm-vic-20 7y ago
  Now we deport them when their visa expires.
  - asdf21 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure Visas expired back then too..
    - harry8 7y ago
      And when the prospect of losing the cold war is breathing down your neck you go right ahead and renew visas of those making an important contribution..?
- Defenestresque 7y ago
  The Idea Factory was excellent and really delves into the nuance of topics many of us see as black and white (government regulation vs. laissez-faire capitalism, monopolies vs. competition, pure vs. applied research) The author also does a great job at making his subjects come alive. You really get a feel for the great minds of years past who have often stumbled in the dark before coming up with brilliant theories that we all still rely on.
GrumpyNl 7y ago
Why do all video players these days start with volume on full blast? Even worse, on this player i cant find the volume button.
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  Had to open the link out of curiosity just to confirm this. It's a Vimeo embed, but it doesn't show a volume button! Pressing [?] shows the up/down arrow keys control volume, but I can't confirm it does because my computer doesn't have sound.
melling 7y ago
Haven’t read this yet but it’s on my list: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Play-Shannon-Invented-Information/dp/1476766681 https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Play-Shannon-Invented-Informatio... This is also a good read: http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/claude-shannon-the-las-vegas-cheat http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/claude-shannon-the-las-v...
- madcaptenor 7y ago
  It's a good book. The Nautilus article is an excerpt from it.
abetusk 7y ago
Shannon was certainly one of the great scientists. His paper "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" [1] is on the one hand accessible but profound. His derivation of entropy and the the limits of communication over a noisy channel are almost simple but I believe this is true only because of hindsight and is, in my opinion, the hallmark of a deep idea. We've only recently been able to get close to the Shannon limit with Turbo Codes [2] and Low Parity Density Checks (LPDC) [3]. For anyone interested, I wrote a short post on deriving entropy and channel capacity [4]. [1] http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entropy/entropy.pdf http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entrop... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_code [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-density_parity-check_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-density_parity-check_code [4] https://mechaelephant.com/dev/Shannon-Entropy/ https://mechaelephant.com/dev/Shannon-Entropy/
person_of_color 7y ago
How can someone be so good at the age of 21? It depresses me.
- enjoylife 7y ago
  Unfortunately it would be hard to ask him directly as to why but a good proxy is to listen to one of his colleagues, Richard Hamming explain. https://youtu.be/a1zDuOPkMSw https://youtu.be/a1zDuOPkMSw. He mentions Claude around the 4:30 mark.
- av3csr 7y ago
  That early 1900's generation was overflowing with wunderkinds, Fermi, Feynman, Pauli
  - person_of_color 7y ago
    Why don't we have that anymore?

92 points by mxfh 7y ago

Unclosable pop-up

The Idea Factory was a pretty enlightening book. I never realized how important Bell Labs was in our technological history. They purposely sought out the best minds and gave them freedom to find the next great tech.

cbm-vic-20 7y ago
Now we deport them when their visa expires.
- asdf21 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure Visas expired back then too..
  - harry8 7y ago
    And when the prospect of losing the cold war is breathing down your neck you go right ahead and renew visas of those making an important contribution..?
Defenestresque 7y ago
The Idea Factory was excellent and really delves into the nuance of topics many of us see as black and white (government regulation vs. laissez-faire capitalism, monopolies vs. competition, pure vs. applied research) The author also does a great job at making his subjects come alive. You really get a feel for the great minds of years past who have often stumbled in the dark before coming up with brilliant theories that we all still rely on.

GrumpyNl 7y ago

Why do all video players these days start with volume on full blast? Even worse, on this player i cant find the volume button.

ASalazarMX 7y ago
Had to open the link out of curiosity just to confirm this. It's a Vimeo embed, but it doesn't show a volume button! Pressing [?] shows the up/down arrow keys control volume, but I can't confirm it does because my computer doesn't have sound.

melling 7y ago

Haven’t read this yet but it’s on my list: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Play-Shannon-Invented-Information/dp/1476766681 https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Play-Shannon-Invented-Informatio... This is also a good read: http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/claude-shannon-the-las-vegas-cheat http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/claude-shannon-the-las-v...

madcaptenor 7y ago
It's a good book. The Nautilus article is an excerpt from it.

abetusk 7y ago

Shannon was certainly one of the great scientists. His paper "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" [1] is on the one hand accessible but profound. His derivation of entropy and the the limits of communication over a noisy channel are almost simple but I believe this is true only because of hindsight and is, in my opinion, the hallmark of a deep idea. We've only recently been able to get close to the Shannon limit with Turbo Codes [2] and Low Parity Density Checks (LPDC) [3]. For anyone interested, I wrote a short post on deriving entropy and channel capacity [4]. [1] http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entropy/entropy.pdf http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entrop... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_code [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-density_parity-check_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-density_parity-check_code [4] https://mechaelephant.com/dev/Shannon-Entropy/ https://mechaelephant.com/dev/Shannon-Entropy/

person_of_color 7y ago

How can someone be so good at the age of 21? It depresses me.

enjoylife 7y ago
Unfortunately it would be hard to ask him directly as to why but a good proxy is to listen to one of his colleagues, Richard Hamming explain. https://youtu.be/a1zDuOPkMSw https://youtu.be/a1zDuOPkMSw. He mentions Claude around the 4:30 mark.
av3csr 7y ago
That early 1900's generation was overflowing with wunderkinds, Fermi, Feynman, Pauli
- person_of_color 7y ago
  Why don't we have that anymore?