> Not since Aristotle has such an important theory sprung forth from one man, seemingly out of thin air I'm skeptical. Not to make light of the formalization o

> Not since Aristotle has such an important theory sprung forth from one man, seemingly out of thin air I'm skeptical. Not to make light of the formalization of information theory, but it seems he was generalizing the idea that you can communicate arbitrary information using code. As inspirations for this generalization, he was able to draw upon several existing examples of such systems, including Hollerith's punch card system that had been around for half a century by that point.