A Mind at Play

The life and times of one of the foremost intellects of the twentieth century Claude Shannon the neglected 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. Read A Mind at Play – kino-fada.fr Biography of Claude Shannon, called the father of information theory At age 21, he published a Masters thesis where he described how Boolean logic where variables can only be true or false could be conveyed through circuits This was the gap between conveying information digitally, and is the cornerstone of digital computer design In 1948, he published another ...Now this is how to write a biography I recently read a biography of Paul Dirac that glossed over his achievements and highlighted his personal relationships If you know anything about Dirac, you would know how absurd it is to focus on his personal relationships The author could have at least given his achievements equal billing In this biography, Soni brought to life all the aspects of Shannon s life his inner life is shown through glimpses of what Shannon thought about various things ver Now this is how to write a biography I recently read a biography of Paul Dirac that glossed over his achievements and highlighted his personal relationships If you know anything about Dirac, you would know how absurd it is to focus on his personal relationships The author could have at least given his achievements equal billing In this biography, Soni brought to life all the aspects of Shannon s li...If you are familiar with the history of computing, there are a few names that you ll know well enough biographically to turn them into real people Babbage and Lovelace, Turing and von Neumann, Gates and Jobs But there s one of the greats who may conjure up nothingthan a name Claude Shannon If Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman get this right, we re going to get to know him a lot better and get a grip on his information theory, which sounds simple in principle, but can be difficult to get yo If you are familiar with the history of computing, there are a few names that you ll know well enough biographically to turn them into real people Babbage and Lovelace, Turing and von Neumann, Gates and Jobs But there s one of the greats who may conjure up nothingthan a name Claude Shannon If Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman get this right, we re going to get to know him a lot better and get a grip on his information theory, which sounds simple in principle, but can be difficult...A good biography of an overlooked but seminal figure of physics and mathematics, Claude Shannon His 1948 work on communication and information laid the foundation for the digital world we all inhabit figures like Shannon, Turing, and Von Neuman made modern computing possible Shannon was an introvert but also a playful wiseguy in his work but mostly avoided the limelight His work was general and eclectic basically anything that interested him he would work on Nice biography of a curious chara A good biography of an overlooked but seminal figure of physics and mathematics, Claude Shannon His 1948 work on communication and information laid the foundation for the digital world we all inhabit figures like Shannon, Turing, and Von Neuman made modern computing possible Sha...I find itthan a little upsetting that my hero Claude Shannon isn t a household name To paraphrase Fake Steve Jobs, I invented the bit Ever heard of it Just like that 1919 eclipse proved Einstein s equations were right, our entire modern digital world proves that Shannon s equations were right.He also laid the foundation for digital electronics by applying Boolean algebra to circuits with switches and relays in what must be the most widely cited masters thesis ever I ll bet it s still I find itthan a little upsetting that my hero Claude Shannon isn t a household name To paraphrase Fake Steve Jobs, I invented the bit Ever heard of it Just like that 1919 eclipse proved Einstein s equations were right, our entire modern digital world proves that Shannon s equations were right.He also laid the foundation for digital electronics by applying Boolean algebra to circuits with switches and rela...Despite likely being the most brilliant man you ve never heard of with the most comprehensive unknown impact on the advancement of technology, Claude Shannon, star of Jimmie Sonni and Rob Goodman s A Mind at Play Simon and Schuster 2017 , was by all accounts a normal kid through high school and college Sure, he could send Morse code with his body you ll have to read the book to see how that s accomplished and he had a passion for solving complex math problems most people couldn t even read, Despite likely being the most brilliant man you ve never heard of with the most comprehensive unknown impact on the advancement of technology, Claude Shannon, star of Jimmie Sonni and Rob Goodman s A Mind at Play Simon and Schuster 2017 , was by all accounts a normal kid through high school and college Sure, he could send Morse code with hi...Blecch It s a good thing I knew something about Information Theory before reading this book Because not only didn t authors Soni Goodman, but they failed to communicate what little they had especially how the switch to digital transmission could overcome most signal to noise issues, by making use of technologies like complex modulation or forward error correction, both invented after Shannon s most productive years This bio instead focuses in Shannon the mad genius, slighting the geni Blecch It s a good thing I knew something about Information Theory before reading this book Because not only didn t authors Soni Goodman, but they failed to communicate what little they had especially how the switch to digital transmission could overcome most signal to noise issues, by making use of technologies like complex modulation or forward error correction, both invented after Shannon s most productive years This bio instead focuses in Shannon the mad genius, slighting the genius In a brief summer at Bell Labs, I met people who had worked with him indeed, the Labs kept an office for him at least un...I approached this book eagerly, because I feel a connection with the man and his work I did graduate study at MIT, and worked under people mentioned in the book I also worked at IBM and Bell Labs in the same New York building , and did original work in fields that Shannon had just about invented So I was primed to read it It was a major disappointment For a book about a man like Shannon, you need to get two things right or at least one of them It has to be a good biography, and it shoul I approached this book eagerly, because I feel a connection with the man and his work I did graduate study at MIT, and worked under people mentioned in the book I also worked at IBM and Bell Labs in the same New York building , and did original work in f...Unassuming genius from Midwest invents Information Theory and changes course of HistoryEngaging biographical account of a humble yet singularly influential scientist who changed the world with his mathematical theory of information which sparked a worldwide revolution of digital communication technologies Starting with his rural origins, and tracing his evolution as a university student and later working scientist at Bell Labs, we get to become acquainted with anecdotes and writings which revea Unassuming genius from Midwest invents Information Theory and changes course of HistoryEngaging biographical account of a humble yet singularly influential scient...Claude Shannon, an honorable mathematician A Mind at Play is a very interesting book for many reasons The subtitle How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age is one reason It is a great biography of a mathematician whose life and production are not that well known And what is Information I invite you to read these 281 pages or if you are too lazy or busy, at least the Shannon page on Wikipedia.What I prefer to focus on here is the ever going tension between mathematics and engineering Claude Shannon, an honorable mathematician A Mind at Play is a very interesting book for many reasons The subtitle How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age is one reason It is a great biography of a mathematician whose life and production are not that well known And what is Infor...

• English
• 03 September 2017
Jimmy Soni
• Hardcover
• 384 pages
• 1476766681
• Jimmy Soni
• A Mind at Play