Tinkerer, Prankster, and Father of Information Theory

Thursday, May 12th, 2016

Claude Shannon, tinkerer, prankster, and Father of Information Theory, would have turned 100 a few weeks ago. This old IEEE Spectrum piece makes me wonder if he was the Chuck Yeager of tech geeks:

Who is the real Claude Shannon? A visitor to Entropy House, the stuccoed mansion outside Boston where Shannon and his wife Betty have lived for more than 30 years, might reach different conclusions in different rooms. One room, prim and tidy, is lined with plaques that solemnly testify to Shannon’s numerous honors, including the National Medal of Science, which he received in 1966; the Kyoto Prize, Japan’s equivalent of the Nobel; and the IEEE Medal of Honor.

That room enshrines the Shannon whose work Robert W. Lucky, the executive director of research for AT&T Bell Laboratories, has called the greatest “in the annals of technological thought,” and whose “pioneering insight” IBM Fellow Rolf W. Landauer has equated with Einstein’s. That Shannon is the one who, as a young engineer at Bell Laboratories in 1948, defined the field of information theory. With a brilliant paper in the Bell System Technical Journal, he established the intellectual framework for the efficient packaging and transmission of electronic data. The paper, entitled “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” still stands as the Magna Carta of the communications age. [Editor’s note: Read the paper on IEEE Xplore: Parts I and II; Part III.]

But showing a recent visitor his awards, Shannon, who at 75 has a shock of snowy hair and an elfish grin, seemed almost embarrassed. After a fidgety minute, he bolted into the room next door. This room has framed certificates, too, including one certifying Shannon as a “doctor of juggling.” But it is also lined with tables heaped with all kinds of gadgets.

Some of these treasures—such as the talking chess-playing machine, the hundred-blade jackknife, the motorized pogo stick, and the countless musical instruments—Shannon has collected through the years. Others he has built himself: a miniature stage with three juggling clowns,  a mechanical mouse that finds its way out of a maze, a juggling manikin of the comedian W.C. Fields, and a computer called Throbac (Thrifty Roman Numeral Backward Computer) that calculates in Roman numerals. Shannon tried to get the manikin W.C. Fields to demonstrate his prowess, but in vain. “I love building machines, but it’s hard keeping them in repair,” he said a bit wistfully.

This roomful of gadgets reveals the other Shannon, the one who rode through the halls of Bell Laboratories on a unicycle while simultaneously juggling four balls, invented a rocket-powered Frisbee, and designed a “mind-reading” machine.

This room typifies the Shannon who—seeking insights that could lead to a chess-playing machine—began playing so much chess at work that “at least one supervisor became somewhat worried,” according to a former colleague.

Shannon makes no apologies. “I’ve always pursued my interests without much regard for final value or value to the world,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve spent lots of time on totally useless things.”

Comments

Leave a Reply