Information in its most restricted technical sense is an ordered sequence of symbols that record or transmit a message. It can be recorded as signs, or conveyed as signals by waves. Information is any kind of event that affects the state of a dynamic system. As a concept, however, information has numerous meanings. Moreover, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, representation, and especially entropy.

Etymology

The English word was apparently derived from the Latin stem (''information-'') of the nominative (''informatio''): this noun is in its turn derived from the verb "informare" (to inform) in the sense of "to give form to the mind", "to discipline", "instruct", "teach": "Men so wise should go and inform their kings." (1330) ''Inform'' itself comes (via French ''informer'') from the Latin verb ''informare'', to give form, to form an idea of. Furthermore, Latin itself already contained the word ''informatio'' meaning concept or idea, but the extent to which this may have influenced the development of the word ''information'' in English is not clear.

The ancient Greek word for ''form'' was μορφή (''morphe''; cf. morph) and also εἶδος (''eidos'') "kind, idea, shape, set", the latter word was famously used in a technical philosophical sense by Plato (and later Aristotle) to denote the ideal identity or essence of something (see Theory of forms). "Eidos" can also be associated with thought, proposition or even concept.

As sensory input

Often information is viewed as a type of input to an organism or system. Inputs are of two kinds. Some inputs are important to the function of the organism (for example, food) or system (energy) by themselves. In his book ''Sensory Ecology,'' Dusenbery called these causal inputs. Other inputs (information) are important only because they are associated with causal inputs and can be used to predict the occurrence of a causal input at a later time (and perhaps another place). Some information is important because of association with other information but eventually there must be a connection to a causal input. In practice, information is usually carried by weak stimuli that must be detected by specialized sensory systems and amplified by energy inputs before they can be functional to the organism or system. For example, light is often a causal input to plants but provides information to animals. The colored light reflected from a flower is too weak to do much photosynthetic work but the visual system of the bee detects it and the bee's nervous system uses the information to guide the bee to the flower, where the bee often finds nectar or pollen, which are causal inputs, serving a nutritional function.

As representation and complexity

The cognitive scientist and applied mathematician Ronaldo Vigo argues that information is a relative concept that involves at least two related entities in order to make quantitative sense, these are: any dimensionally-defined category of objects S, and any of its subsets R. R, in essence, is a representation of S, or, in other words, carries or conveys representational (and hence, conceptual) information about S. Vigo then defines the amount of information that R conveys about S as the rate of change in the complexity of S whenever the objects in R are removed from S. Under "Vigo information", pattern, invariance, complexity, representation, and information -- five fundamental constructs of universal science -- are unified under a novel mathematical framework . Among other things, the framework aims to overcome the limitations of Shannon-Weaver information when attempting to characterize and measure subjective information.

As an influence which leads to a transformation

Information is any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns. In this sense, there is no need for a conscious mind to perceive, much less appreciate, the pattern. Consider, for example, DNA. The sequence of nucleotides is a pattern that influences the formation and development of an organism without any need for a conscious mind.

Systems theory at times seems to refer to information in this sense, assuming information does not necessarily involve any conscious mind, and patterns circulating (due to feedback) in the system can be called information. In other words, it can be said that information in this sense is something potentially perceived as representation, though not created or presented for that purpose. For example, Gregory Bateson defines "information" as a "difference that makes a difference".

If, however, the premise of "influence" implies that information has been perceived by a conscious mind and also interpreted by it, the specific context associated with this interpretation may cause the transformation of the information into knowledge. Complex definitions of both "information" and "knowledge" make such semantic and logical analysis difficult, but the condition of "transformation" is an important point in the study of information as it relates to knowledge, especially in the business discipline of knowledge management. In this practice, tools and processes are used to assist a knowledge worker in performing research and making decisions, including steps such as:

reviewing information in order to effectively derive value and meaning

referencing metadata if any is available

establishing a relevant context, often selecting from many possible contexts

deriving new knowledge from the information

making decisions or recommendations from the resulting knowledge.

Stewart (2001) argues that the transformation of information into knowledge is a critical one, lying at the core of value creation and competitive advantage for the modern enterprise.

The Danish Dictionary of Information Terms argues that information only provides an answer to a posed question. Whether the answer provides knowledge depends on the informed person. So a generalized definition of the concept should be: "Information" = An answer to a specific question".

When Marshall McLuhan speaks of media and their effects on human cultures, he refers to the structure of artifacts that in turn shape our behaviors and mindsets. Also, pheromones are often said to be "information" in this sense.

As a property in physics

In 2003, J. D. Bekenstein claimed there is a growing trend in physics to define the physical world as being made of information itself (and thus information is defined in this way) (see Digital physics). Information has a well-defined meaning in physics. Examples of this include the phenomenon of quantum entanglement where particles can interact without reference to their separation or the speed of light. Information itself cannot travel faster than light even if the information is transmitted indirectly. This could lead to the fact that all attempts at physically observing a particle with an "entangled" relationship to another are slowed down, even though the particles are not connected in any other way other than by the information they carry.

Another link is demonstrated by the Maxwell's demon thought experiment. In this experiment, a direct relationship between information and another physical property, entropy, is demonstrated. A consequence is that it is impossible to destroy information without increasing the entropy of a system; in practical terms this often means generating heat. Another, more philosophical outcome is that information could be thought of as interchangeable with energy. Thus, in the study of logic gates, the theoretical lower bound of thermal energy released by an ''AND gate'' is higher than for the ''NOT gate'' (because information is destroyed in an ''AND gate'' and simply converted in a ''NOT gate''). Physical information is of particular importance in the theory of quantum computers.

As records

Records are a specialized form of information. Essentially, records are information produced consciously or as by-products of business activities or transactions and retained because of their value. Primarily their value is as evidence of the activities of the organization but they may also be retained for their informational value. Sound records management ensures that the integrity of records is preserved for as long as they are required.

The international standard on records management, ISO 15489, defines records as "information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business". The International Committee on Archives (ICA) Committee on electronic records defined a record as, "a specific piece of recorded information generated, collected or received in the initiation, conduct or completion of an activity and that comprises sufficient content, context and structure to provide proof or evidence of that activity".

Records may be maintained to retain corporate memory of the organization or to meet legal, fiscal or accountability requirements imposed on the organization. Willis (2005) expressed the view that sound management of business records and information delivered "…six key requirements for good corporate governance…transparency; accountability; due process; compliance; meeting statutory and common law requirements; and security of personal and corporate information."

Information and semiotics

Beynon-Davies explains the multi-faceted concept of information in terms of signs and signal-sign systems. Signs themselves can be considered in terms of four inter-dependent levels, layers or branches of semiotics: pragmatics, semantics, syntax, and empirics. These four layers serve to connect the social world on the one hand with the physical or technical world on the other...

Pragmatics is concerned with the purpose of communication. Pragmatics links the issue of signs with the context within which signs are used. The focus of pragmatics is on the intentions of living agents underlying communicative behaviour. In other words, pragmatics link language to action.

Semantics is concerned with the meaning of a message conveyed in a communicative act. Semantics considers the content of communication. Semantics is the study of the meaning of signs - the association between signs and behaviour. Semantics can be considered as the study of the link between symbols and their referents or concepts; particularly the way in which signs relate to human behaviour.

Syntax is concerned with the formalism used to represent a message. Syntax as an area studies the form of communication in terms of the logic and grammar of sign systems. Syntax is devoted to the study of the form rather than the content of signs and sign-systems.

Empirics is the study of the signals used to carry a message; the physical characteristics of the medium of communication. Empirics is devoted to the study of communication channels and their characteristics, e.g., sound, light, electronic transmission etc..

Nielsen (2008) discusses the relationship between semiotics and information in relation to dictionaries. The concept of lexicographic information costs is introduced and refers to the efforts users of dictionaries need to make in order to, first, find the data sought and, secondly, understand the data so that they can generate information.

Communication normally exists within the context of some social situation. The social situation sets the context for the intentions conveyed (pragmatics) and the form in which communication takes place. In a communicative situation intentions are expressed through messages which comprise collections of inter-related signs taken from a language which is mutually understood by the agents involved in the communication. Mutual understanding implies that agents involved understand the chosen language in terms of its agreed syntax (syntactics) and semantics. The sender codes the message in the language and sends the message as signals along some communication channel (empirics). The chosen communication channel will have inherent properties which determine outcomes such as the speed with which communication can take place and over what distance.

More recently Shu-Kun Lin proposed a simple definition of information: Information is the amount of the data after data compression.

See also

Abstraction

Accuracy and precision

Classified information

Complexity

* Complex adaptive system

* Complex system

Cybernetics

Data storage device#Recording medium

Exformation

Free Information Infrastructure

Freedom of information

Gregory Bateson

Information and communication technologies

Information architecture

Information broker

Information continuum

Information Entropy

Information geometry

Information inequity

Information ladder

Information mapping

Information overload

Information processing

Information processor

Information sensitivity

Information systems

Information superhighway

Information Theory

Infornography

Infosphere

Lexicographic information cost

Library science

Philosophy of information

Prediction

Propaganda model

Quantum information

Receiver operating characteristic

Relevance

Satisficing

Shannon–Hartley theorem

References

Further reading

Alan Liu (2004). ''The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information'', University of Chicago Press

Bekenstein, Jacob D. (2003, August). Information in the holographic universe. ''Scientific American''.

Gleick, James (2011). The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. Pantheon, New York, NY.

Shu-Kun Lin (2008). 'Gibbs Paradox and the Concepts of Information, Symmetry, Similarity and Their Relationship', ''Entropy'', 10 (1), 1-5. Available online at Entropy journal website.

Luciano Floridi, (2005). 'Is Information Meaningful Data?', ''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'', 70 (2), pp. 351 – 370. Available online at PhilSci Archive

Luciano Floridi, (2005). 'Semantic Conceptions of Information', ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Winter 2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Available online at Stanford University

Sandro Nielsen: 'The Effect of Lexicographical Information Costs on Dictionary Making and Use', ''Lexikos'' 18/2008, 170-189.

Stewart, Thomas, (2001). Wealth of Knowledge. Doubleday, New York, NY, 379 p.

Young, Paul. The Nature of Information (1987). Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Ct. ISBN 0-275-92698-2.

External links

Semantic Conceptions of Information Review by Luciano Floridi for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Principia Cybernetica entry on negentropy

Fisher Information, a New Paradigm for Science: Introduction, Uncertainty principles, Wave equations, Ideas of Escher, Kant, Plato and Wheeler. This essay is continually revised in the light of ongoing research.

How Much Information? 2003 an attempt to estimate how much new information is created each year (study was produced by faculty and students at the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley)

Informationsordbogen.dk The Danish Dictionary of Information Terms / Informationsordbogen

Category:Information, knowledge, and uncertainty Category:Concepts in metaphysics

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Name	Claude Shannon
Birth date	April 30, 1916
Birth place	Petoskey, Michigan, United States
Death date	April 30, 1916
Death place	Medford, Massachusetts, United States
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Mathematics and electronic engineering
Workplaces	Bell Laboratories Massachusetts Institute of Technology Institute for Advanced Study
Alma mater	University of Michigan Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisor	Frank Lauren Hitchcock
Doctoral students	Danny Hillis Ivan Edward Sutherland William Robert Sutherland Heinrich Ernst
Known for	Information Theory Shannon–Fano coding Shannon–Hartley law Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem Noisy channel coding theorem Shannon switching game Shannon number Shannon index Shannon's source coding theorem Shannon's expansion Shannon-Weaver model of communication Whittaker–Shannon interpolation formula
Awards	IEEE Medal of Honor Kyoto Prize Harvey Prize (1972)
Signature
Footnotes	}}

Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electronic engineer, and cryptographer known as "the father of information theory".

Shannon is famous for having founded information theory with one landmark paper published in 1948. But he is also credited with founding both digital computer and digital circuit design theory in 1937, when, as a 21-year-old master's student at MIT, he wrote a thesis demonstrating that electrical application of Boolean algebra could construct and resolve any logical, numerical relationship. It has been claimed that this was the most important master's thesis of all time. Shannon contributed to the field of cryptanalysis during World War II and afterwards, including basic work on code breaking.

Biography

Shannon was born in Petoskey, Michigan. His father, Claude Sr (1862–1934), a descendant of early New Jersey settlers, was a self-made businessman and for a while, Judge of Probate. His mother, Mabel Wolf Shannon (1890–1945), daughter of German immigrants, was a language teacher and for a number of years principal of Gaylord High School, Michigan. The first 16 years of Shannon's life were spent in Gaylord, Michigan, where he attended public school, graduating from Gaylord High School in 1932. Shannon showed an inclination towards mechanical things. His best subjects were science and mathematics, and at home he constructed such devices as models of planes, a radio-controlled model boat and a telegraph system to a friend's house half a mile away. While growing up, he worked as a messenger for Western Union. His childhood hero was Thomas Edison, who he later learned was a distant cousin. Both were descendants of John Ogden, a colonial leader and an ancestor of many distinguished people.

Boolean theory

In 1932 he entered the University of Michigan, where he took a course that introduced him to the works of George Boole. He graduated in 1936 with two bachelor's degrees, one in electrical engineering and one in mathematics. Later he began his graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he worked on Vannevar Bush's differential analyzer, an analog computer.

While studying the complicated ad hoc circuits of the differential analyzer, Shannon saw that Boole's concepts could be used to great utility. A paper drawn from his 1937 master's thesis, ''A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits'', was published in the 1938 issue of the ''Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers''. It also earned Shannon the Alfred Noble American Institute of American Engineers Award in 1940. Howard Gardner, of Harvard University, called Shannon's thesis "possibly the most important, and also the most famous, master's thesis of the century."

Victor Shestakov, at Moscow State University, had proposed a theory of electric switches based on Boolean logic earlier than Shannon, in 1935, but the first publication of Shestakov's result took place in 1941, after the publication of Shannon's thesis.

In this work, Shannon proved that Boolean algebra and binary arithmetic could be used to simplify the arrangement of the electromechanical relays then used in telephone routing switches, then expanded the concept and also proved that it should be possible to use arrangements of relays to solve Boolean algebra problems. Exploiting this property of electrical switches to do logic is the basic concept that underlies all electronic digital computers. Shannon's work became the foundation of practical digital circuit design when it became widely known among the electrical engineering community during and after World War II. The theoretical rigor of Shannon's work completely replaced the ''ad hoc'' methods that had previously prevailed.

Vannevar Bush suggested that Shannon, flush with this success, work on his dissertation at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, funded by the Carnegie Institution headed by Bush, to develop similar mathematical relationships for Mendelian genetics, which resulted in Shannon's 1940 PhD thesis at MIT, ''An Algebra for Theoretical Genetics.''

In 1940, Shannon became a National Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. At Princeton, Shannon had the opportunity to discuss his ideas with influential scientists and mathematicians such as Hermann Weyl and John von Neumann, and even had the occasional encounter with Albert Einstein. Shannon worked freely across disciplines, and began to shape the ideas that would become information theory.

Wartime research

Shannon then joined Bell Labs to work on fire-control systems and cryptography during World War II, under a contract with section D-2 (Control Systems section) of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC).

For two months early in 1943, Shannon came into contact with the leading British cryptanalyst and mathematician Alan Turing. Turing had been posted to Washington to share with the US Navy's cryptanalytic service the methods used by the British Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park to break the ciphers used by the German U-boats in the North Atlantic. He was also interested in the encipherment of speech and to this end spent time at Bell Labs. Shannon and Turing met at teatime in the cafeteria. Private archives from Bell Labs suggest that a Visual Binary encoding system was developed via their collaboration at this time.

Turing showed Shannon his seminal 1936 paper that defined what is now known as the "Universal Turing machine" which impressed him, as many of its ideas were complementary to his own.

In 1945, as the war was coming to an end, the NDRC was issuing a summary of technical reports as a last step prior to its eventual closing down. Inside the volume on fire control a special essay titled ''Data Smoothing and Prediction in Fire-Control Systems'', coauthored by Shannon, Ralph Beebe Blackman, and Hendrik Wade Bode, formally treated the problem of smoothing the data in fire-control by analogy with "the problem of separating a signal from interfering noise in communications systems." In other words it modeled the problem in terms of data and signal processing and thus heralded the coming of the information age.

His work on cryptography was even more closely related to his later publications on communication theory. At the close of the war, he prepared a classified memorandum for Bell Telephone Labs entitled "A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography," dated September, 1945. A declassified version of this paper was subsequently published in 1949 as "Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems" in the ''Bell System Technical Journal''. This paper incorporated many of the concepts and mathematical formulations that also appeared in his ''A Mathematical Theory of Communication''. Shannon said that his wartime insights into communication theory and cryptography developed simultaneously and "they were so close together you couldn’t separate them". In a footnote near the beginning of the classified report, Shannon announced his intention to "develop these results ... in a forthcoming memorandum on the transmission of information."

While at Bell Labs, he proved that the one-time pad is unbreakable in his World War II research that was later published in October 1949. He also proved that any unbreakable system must have essentially the same characteristics as the one-time pad: the key must be truly random, as large as the plaintext, never reused in whole or part, and kept secret.

Postwar contributions

In 1948 the promised memorandum appeared as "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", an article in two parts in the July and October issues of the ''Bell System Technical Journal''. This work focuses on the problem of how best to encode the information a sender wants to transmit. In this fundamental work he used tools in probability theory, developed by Norbert Wiener, which were in their nascent stages of being applied to communication theory at that time. Shannon developed information entropy as a measure for the uncertainty in a message while essentially inventing the field of information theory.

The book, co-authored with Warren Weaver, ''The Mathematical Theory of Communication'', reprints Shannon's 1948 article and Weaver's popularization of it, which is accessible to the non-specialist. Shannon's concepts were also popularized, subject to his own proofreading, in John Robinson Pierce's ''Symbols, Signals, and Noise''.

Information theory's fundamental contribution to natural language processing and computational linguistics was further established in 1951, in his article "Prediction and Entropy of Printed English", proving that treating whitespace as the 27th letter of the alphabet actually lowers uncertainty in written language, providing a clear quantifiable link between cultural practice and probabilistic cognition.

Another notable paper published in 1949 is "Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems", a declassified version of his wartime work on the mathematical theory of cryptography, in which he proved that all theoretically unbreakable ciphers must have the same requirements as the one-time pad. He is also credited with the introduction of sampling theory, which is concerned with representing a continuous-time signal from a (uniform) discrete set of samples. This theory was essential in enabling telecommunications to move from analog to digital transmissions systems in the 1960s and later.

He returned to MIT to hold an endowed chair in 1956.

Hobbies and inventions

Outside of his academic pursuits, Shannon was interested in juggling, unicycling, and chess. He also invented many devices, including rocket-powered flying discs, a motorized pogo stick, and a flame-throwing trumpet for a science exhibition. One of his more humorous devices was a box kept on his desk called the "Ultimate Machine", based on an idea by Marvin Minsky. Otherwise featureless, the box possessed a single switch on its side. When the switch was flipped, the lid of the box opened and a mechanical hand reached out, flipped off the switch, then retracted back inside the box. Renewed interest in the "Ultimate Machine" has emerged on YouTube and Thingiverse. In addition he built a device that could solve the Rubik's cube puzzle.

He is also considered the co-inventor of the first wearable computer along with Edward O. Thorp. The device was used to improve the odds when playing roulette.

Legacy and tributes

Shannon came to MIT in 1956 to join its faculty and to conduct work in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE). He continued to serve on the MIT faculty until 1978. To commemorate his achievements, there were celebrations of his work in 2001, and there are currently six statues of Shannon sculpted by Eugene L. Daub: one at the University of Michigan; one at MIT in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems; one in Gaylord, Michigan; one at the University of California, San Diego; one at Bell Labs; and another at AT&T; Shannon Labs. After the breakup of the Bell system, the part of Bell Labs that remained with AT&T; was named Shannon Labs in his honor.

Robert Gallager has called Shannon the greatest scientist of the 20th century. According to Neil Sloane, an AT&T; Fellow who co-edited Shannon's large collection of papers in 1993, the perspective introduced by Shannon's communication theory (now called information theory) is the foundation of the digital revolution, and every device containing a microprocessor or microcontroller is a conceptual descendant of Shannon's 1948 publication: "He's one of the great men of the century. Without him, none of the things we know today would exist. The whole digital revolution started with him."

Shannon developed Alzheimer's disease, and spent his last few years in a Massachusetts nursing home. He was survived by his wife, Mary Elizabeth Moore Shannon; a son, Andrew Moore Shannon; a daughter, Margarita Shannon; a sister, Catherine S. Kay; and two granddaughters.

Shannon was oblivious to the marvels of the digital revolution because his mind was ravaged by Alzheimer's disease. His wife mentioned in his obituary that had it not been for Alzheimer's "he would have been bemused" by it all.

Other work

Shannon's mouse

Theseus, created in 1950, was a magnetic mouse controlled by a relay circuit that enabled it to move around a maze of 25 squares. Its dimensions were the same as an average mouse. The maze configuration was flexible and it could be modified at will. The mouse was designed to search through the corridors until it found the target. Having travelled through the maze, the mouse would then be placed anywhere it had been before and because of its prior experience it could go directly to the target. If placed in unfamiliar territory, it was programmed to search until it reached a known location and then it would proceed to the target, adding the new knowledge to its memory thus learning. Shannon's mouse appears to have been the first learning device of its kind.

Shannon's computer chess program

In 1950 Shannon published a groundbreaking paper on computer chess entitled ''Programming a Computer for Playing Chess''. It describes how a machine or computer could be made to play a reasonable game of chess. His process for having the computer decide on which move to make is a minimax procedure, based on an evaluation function of a given chess position. Shannon gave a rough example of an evaluation function in which the value of the black position was subtracted from that of the white position. ''Material'' was counted according to the usual relative chess piece relative value (1 point for a pawn, 3 points for a knight or bishop, 5 points for a rook, and 9 points for a queen). He considered some positional factors, subtracting ½ point for each doubled pawns, backward pawn, and isolated pawn. Another positional factor in the evaluation function was ''mobility'', adding 0.1 point for each legal move available. Finally, he considered checkmate to be the capture of the king, and gave the king the artificial value of 200 points. Quoting from the paper:

:''The coefficients .5 and .1 are merely the writer's rough estimate. Furthermore, there are many other terms that should be included. The formula is given only for illustrative purposes. Checkmate has been artificially included here by giving the king the large value 200 (anything greater than the maximum of all other terms would do).''

The evaluation function is clearly for illustrative purposes, as Shannon stated. For example, according to the function, pawns that are doubled as well as isolated would have no value at all, which is clearly unrealistic.

The Las Vegas connection: information theory and its applications to game theory

Shannon and his wife Betty also used to go on weekends to Las Vegas with M.I.T. mathematician Ed Thorp, and made very successful forays in blackjack using game theory type methods co-developed with fellow Bell Labs associate, physicist John L. Kelly Jr. based on principles of information theory. They made a fortune, as detailed in the book ''Fortune's Formula'' by William Poundstone and corroborated by the writings of Elwyn Berlekamp, Kelly's research assistant in 1960 and 1962. Shannon and Thorp also applied the same theory, later known as the ''Kelly criterion'', to the stock market with even better results. Over the decades, Kelly's scientific formula has become a part of mainstream investment theory and the most prominent users, well-known and successful billionaire investors Warren Buffett, Bill Gross and Jim Simons use Kelly methods. Warren Buffett met Thorp the first time in 1968. It's said that Buffett uses a form of the Kelly criterion in deciding how much money to put into various holdings. Also Elwyn Berlekamp had applied the same logical algorithm for Axcom Trading Advisors, an alternative investment management company, that he had founded. Berlekamp's company was acquired by Jim Simons and his Renaissance Technologies Corp hedge fund in 1992, whereafter its investment instruments were either subsumed into (or essentially renamed as) Renaissance's flagship Medallion Fund. But as Kelly's original paper demonstrates, the criterion is only valid when the investment or "game" is played many times over, with the same probability of winning or losing each time, and the same payout ratio.

The theory was also exploited by the famous ''MIT Blackjack Team'', which was a group of students and ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Business School, Harvard University, and other leading colleges who used card-counting techniques and other sophisticated strategies to beat casinos at blackjack worldwide. The team and its successors operated successfully from 1979 through the beginning of the 21st century. Many other blackjack teams have been formed around the world with the goal of beating the casinos.

Claude Shannon's card count techniques were explained in ''Bringing Down the House'', the best-selling book published in 2003 about the MIT Blackjack Team by Ben Mezrich. In 2008 the book was adapted into a drama film titled ''21''.

Shannon's maxim

Shannon formulated a version of Kerckhoffs' principle as "the enemy knows the system". In this form it is known as "Shannon's maxim".

Biographical notes

He met his wife Betty when she was a numerical analyst at Bell Labs.

Awards and honors list

Alfred Noble Prize, 1939 Morris Liebmann Memorial Prize of the Institute of Radio Engineers, 1949

Yale University (Master of Science), 1954

Stuart Ballantine Medal of the Franklin Institute, 1955

Research Corporation Award, 1956

University of Michigan, honorary doctorate, 1961

Rice University Medal of Honor, 1962

Princeton University, honorary doctorate, 1962

Marvin J. Kelly Award, 1962

University of Edinburgh, honorary doctorate, 1964

University of Pittsburgh, honorary doctorate, 1964

Medal of Honor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1966

National Medal of Science, 1966, presented by President Lyndon B. Johnson

Golden Plate Award, 1967

Northwestern University, honorary doctorate, 1970

Harvey Prize, the Technion of Haifa, Israel, 1972

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), foreign member, 1975

University of Oxford, honorary doctorate, 1978

Joseph Jacquard Award, 1978

Harold Pender Award, 1978

University of East Anglia, honorary doctorate, 1982

Carnegie Mellon University, honorary doctorate, 1984

Audio Engineering Society Gold Medal, 1985

Kyoto Prize, 1985

Tufts University, honorary doctorate, 1987

University of Pennsylvania, honorary doctorate, 1991

Basic Research Award, Eduard Rhein Foundation, Germany, 1991

National Inventors Hall of Fame inducted, 2004

See also

Shannon–Fano coding

Shannon–Hartley theorem

Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem

Noisy channel coding theorem

Rate distortion theory

Information theory

Channel Capacity

Confusion and diffusion

One-time pad

Shannon switching game

Shannon number

Claude E. Shannon Award

Shannon index

Shannon's source coding theorem

Information entropy

Shannon's expansion

References

Further reading

Claude E. Shannon: ''A Mathematical Theory of Communication'', Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 27, pp. 379–423, 623–656, 1948.

Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver: ''The Mathematical Theory of Communication.'' The University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois, 1949. ISBN 0-252-72548-4

Rethnakaran Pulikkoonattu - Eric W. Weisstein: Mathworld biography of Shannon, Claude Elwood (1916–2001)

Claude E. Shannon: ''Programming a Computer for Playing Chess'', Philosophical Magazine, Ser.7, Vol. 41, No. 314, March 1950. (Available online under ''External links'' below)

David Levy: ''Computer Gamesmanship: Elements of Intelligent Game Design'', Simon & Schuster, 1983. ISBN 0-671-49532-1

Mindell, David A., "Automation's Finest Hour: Bell Labs and Automatic Control in World War II", IEEE Control Systems, December 1995, pp. 72–80.

David Mindell, Jérôme Segal, Slava Gerovitch, "From Communications Engineering to Communications Science: Cybernetics and Information Theory in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union" in Walker, Mark (Ed.), ''Science and Ideology: A Comparative History'', Routledge, London, 2003, pp. 66–95.

Poundstone, William, ''Fortune's Formula'', Hill & Wang, 2005, ISBN 978-0-8090-4599-0

Gleick, James, ''The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood'', Pantheon, 2011, ISBN 9780375423727

Shannon videos

Shannon's video machines

Shannon - father of the information age

AT&T; Tech Channel's Tech Icons - Claude Shannon

External links

C. E. Shannon, ''An algebra for theoretical genetics,'' Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D. Thesis, MIT-THESES//1940–3 (1940) Online text at MIT

Shannon's math genealogy

Shannon's NNDB profile

''A Mathematical Theory of Communication''

''Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems''

''Communication in the Presence of Noise''

Summary of Shannon's life and career

Biographical summary from Shannon's collected papers

Video documentary: "Claude Shannon - Father of the Information Age"

Mathematical Theory of Claude Shannon In-depth MIT class paper on the development of Shannon's work to 1948.

Retrospective at the University of Michigan

Shannon's University of Michigan profile

Notes on Computer-Generated Text

Shannon's Juggling Theorem and Juggling Robots

Color Photo of Shannon, Juggling

Shannon's paper on computer chess, text

Shannon's paper on computer chess, text, alternate source

A Bibliography of His Collected Papers

A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress

The Technium: The (Unspeakable) Ultimate Machine

The Most Beautiful Machine. (aka the "Ultimate Machine") It's a communication based on the functions ON and OFF.

Guizzo, "The Essential Message: Claude Shannon and the Making of Information Theory"

Claude Shannon, Edward O. Thorp, Fortune's Formula

Claude Shannon : Founding Father of Electronic Communication age,Dream 2047, December,2006, Shivaprasad Khened

Category:1916 births Category:2001 deaths Category:American atheists Category:American engineers Category:American mathematicians Category:Computer pioneers Category:American computer scientists Category:American electrical engineers Category:Control theorists Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease Category:American people of German descent Category:IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Category:Information theorists Category:Internet pioneers Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Category:National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees Category:National Medal of Science laureates Category:Pre-computer cryptographers Category:Scientists at Bell Labs Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Systems scientists Category:Modern cryptographers Category:University of Michigan alumni Category:Researchers in stochastics Category:Probability theorists Category:Communication theorists Category:Unicyclists Category:Foreign Members of the Royal Society

am:ክላውድ ሻነን ar:كلود شانون bn:ক্লদ শ্যানন bs:Claude E. Shannon bg:Клод Шанън ca:Claude Elwood Shannon cs:Claude Shannon da:Claude Shannon de:Claude Elwood Shannon el:Κλοντ Σάνον es:Claude Elwood Shannon eo:Claude Shannon eu:Claude Shannon fa:کلود شانون fr:Claude Shannon ko:클로드 섀넌 is:Claude Shannon it:Claude Shannon he:קלוד שאנון ht:Claude Shannon hu:Claude Shannon ml:ക്ലോഡ് ഷാനൺ nl:Claude Shannon ja:クロード・シャノン no:Claude Elwood Shannon pl:Claude E. Shannon pt:Claude Elwood Shannon ro:Claude Shannon ru:Шеннон, Клод sk:Claude Elwood Shannon sl:Claude Elwood Shannon ckb:کڵاد شانن sr:Klod Elvud Šenon fi:Claude Shannon sv:Claude Shannon th:คล็อด แชนนอน tr:Claude Elwood Shannon uk:Клод Шеннон wuu:香农 (计算数学家) zh:克劳德·香农

The following is a list of significant men and women known for being the father, mother, or considered the founders mostly in Western socities in a field, listed by category. In most non-science fields, the title of being the "father" is debatable.

Church

Games

Subject	Father/Mother	Reason
Miniature wargaming	H.G. Wells
	Shigeru Miyamoto	Creator of many successful Nintendo franchises
PlayStation	Ken Kutaragi
Role-playing game	Gary Gygax	Creator of ''Dungeons & Dragons''
Stealth game	Hideo Kojima
Video game	Ralph H. Baer	Inventor of the video game console
Wargaming	Charles S. Roberts

Humanities

Military

Subject	Father/Mother	Reason
Aerial warfare	Oswald Boelcke	The first to formalize rules of air fighting, which he presented as the Dicta Boelcke, also credited as being the first pilot to shoot down an aircraft.
Atomic bomb	Robert OppenheimerLeó SzilárdEnrico Fermi
Blitzkrieg	Heinz Guderian
	Edward Teller
Atomic submarine and "nuclear navy"	Hyman G. Rickover
Fourth Generation Warfare	William S. Lind
	Jean-Baptiste Colbert	Built on the fleet of France inherited from Cardinal Richelieu.
Naval Special Warfare	Phil H. Bucklew	US Naval Officer and First Commanding Officer of Navy SEAL Team One
Naval tactical studies	Paul Hoste	Jesuit Professor of Mathematics at the Royal College of the Marine in Toulon; wrote ''L'Art des Armées Navales'' (1697)
Luftwaffe and Luftstreitkräfte	Oswald Boelcke
The Soviet Union's Hydrogen Bomb	Andrei Sakharov
	William C. Lee	First commander of the parachute school at Fort Benning, Georgia.
	Kazimierz Pułaski	Brigadier-general and commander of the cavalry of the Continental Army (1770s).
United States Navy
Subject	Father/Mother	! Reason
[[American Football">John Barry (naval officer)

Nations

Natural and social sciences

Sports

Subject	Father/Mother	! Reason
[[American Football	Walter Camp
		Godfather, created the New York Cosmos soccer team and imported a number of well known international footballers to the team in an attempt to bring interest to soccer in the US.
Angling	Izaak Walton	author of ''The Compleat Angler''
Association football	Ebenezer Cobb Morley
	Charles William Miller
Baseball
Basketball	James Naismith
	Scot Breithaupt
	Eugen Sandow
Harold Zinkin	Called so by Arnold Schwarzenegger during a press statement on his passing in 2004. Inventor of the modern exercise machines.
	James Figg
James J. Corbett
	Jim Downing	Built a racecar a season before it became the basis of a new lightweight prototype class in .
Canadian rodeo		coined the rodeo term ''Stampede'' and was world's first rodeo producer/rodeo stock contractor/rodeo champion in 1902
	Wally Parks
Don Garlits	Considered to be one of the innovators of drag racing safety.
Eddie Hill	Regarded as the Forefather of Drag Racing.
	Kunimitsu Takahashi
Modern figure skating	Jackson Haines
The Football Association	Ebenezer Cobb Morley	Founder
rowspan="2"	James Richardson Spensley
William Garbutt	Laying the foundations of skilled coaching in Italian football
Freestyle BMX	Bob Haro
Freestyle Motocross	Mike Metzger	Godfather
Funny Car	Dick Landy
	Frank Chirkinian	Personally responsible for much of the production conventions of modern golf broadcasting.
rowspan="2"		Credited for introducing baseball in Japan
Hiroshi Hiraoka	Credited for establishing the first baseball team
Jogging	Jim Fixx	Founding father
Karting	Art Ingels	Developed the world's first kart (1956)
Lacrosse	William George Beers	Codified the sport
Mixed martial arts	Bruce Lee	Called so by Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. For his experimentation into other styles and invention of Jeet Kune Do.
American motocross	Edison Dye	Introduced motorcross to American riders
NASCAR	Bill France, Sr.	Foundation of the sanctioning body for stock car racing
Road racing in the United States	Cameron Argetsinger
Rugby union	A. G. Guillemard	William Webb Ellis			(William Webb Ellis)"WHO WITH A FINE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF FOOTBALL AS PLAYED IN HIS TIME FIRST TOOK THE BALL IN HIS ARMS AND RAN WITH IT THUS ORIGINATING THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF THE RUGBY GAME"
	Italo Santelli
Florida Skateboarding	Bruce Walker
East Coast Skateboarding	Vinny Raffa
	Skip Engblom
Tony Hawk
Snowboard	Jake Burton
Supercross	Mike Goodwin	Organized the first supercross race
Modern surfing	Duke Kahanamoku

Technology

Fields

Subject	Father/Mother	Reason
Aerodynamics (modern)	Sir George Cayley	Founding father of modern Aerodynamics. The first to identify the four aerodynamic forces of flight—weight, Lift (force)
[[Architecture	Imhotep	Built the first pyramid
Astronautics	Konstantin Tsiolkovsky	Robert H. GoddardHermann Oberth
Aviation		Book: ''Prodromo alla Arte Maestra'' (1670). First to describe the geometry and physics of a flying vessel.
	Thomas Tompion
Clinical trials	James Lind	Conducted the first Scientific control
[[Computing	Charles Babbage	Inventor of the Analytical Engine which was never constructed in his lifetime.
Cybernetics	Norbert Wiener
	William F. Moran	Founder of the American Bladesmith Society
	Bob Loveless	Founder of the Knifemakers' Guild
Photography

Inventions

Subject	Father/Mother	Reason
Air conditioning	Willis Carrier
Chronograph
Compact Disc
Compiler	Grace Hopper
	Konrad Zuse	Invented world's first functional program-controlled computer.
Alan Turing	Was a secret code breaker during WWII and invented the Turing machine (1936).
John von Neumann	Became "intrigued" with Turing's universal machine and later emphasised the importance of the stored-program concept for electronic computing (1945), including the possibility of allowing the machine to modify its own program in useful ways while running.
	Invented the digital computer in the 1930s
Computer Program	Ada Lovelace	Recognized by historians as the writer of the world's first computer program which was for the Charles Babbage Analytical Engine, but was never complete within either her or his lifetime.
Ekranoplan	Rostislav Alexeev
Helicopter	Igor Sikorsky	Invented the first successful helicopter, upon which further designs were based.
Internet	Vint CerfBob Kahn
Instant noodle	Momofuku Ando	Inventor of the instant noodle, also founder of Nissin Foods to produce and market them.
Japanese television	Kenjiro Takayanagi
Jet engine	Frank Whittle
Karaoke	Daisuke Inoue	Inventor of the machine as a means of allowing people to sing without the need of a live back-up.
Laser	Charles Hard Townes
Lightning prediction system	Alexander Stepanovich Popov	The first lightning prediction system, the Lightning detector, was invented in 1894 by Alexander Stepanovich Popov.
Marine chronometer	John Harrison
Microprocessor	Marcian Hoff Masatoshi Shima
Mobile phone		He is the main brainchild of hand-held phone and with the help of Motorola team he developed the first handset in 1973 weighing in at two kilos.
	Vinod Dham	The original Pentium (P5) was developed by a team of engineers, including John H. Crawford, chief architect of the original 386, and Donald Alpert, who managed the architectural team. Dror Avnon managed the design of the FPU. Dham was general manager of the P5 group. Some media sources have called him the "father of the Pentium".
	Chuck Peddle	Developed the 6502 microprocessor, the KIM-1 and the Commodore PET
Programmable logic controller	Dick Morley
Radio	Alexander Stepanovich Popov Lee De Forest Guglielmo Marconi Jagdish Chandra Bose Nikola Tesla
Radio (Radio broadcasting)	Reginald Fessenden David Sarnoff	Fessenden is credited as the first to broadcast radio signals on Christmas Eve, 1906. Sarnoff proposed a chain of radio stations to Marconi's associates in 1915.
Radio (FM radio)	Edwin H. Armstrong	Obtained the first Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license to operate an FM station in Alpine, New Jersey at approximately 50 megahertz (1939)
Radiotelephony	Reginald Fessenden
SGML	Charles Goldfarb
Telephone	Antonio Meucci	Alexander Graham Bell	See Invention of the telephone
Television	Philo T. Farnsworth			Vladimir Zworykin			John Logie Baird	Co-Inventors of the Electronic Television. Farnsworth invented the Image dissector while Zworykin created the Iconoscope, both fully electronic forms of television. Logie Baird invented the world's first working television system, also the first electronic color television system.
Tokamak	Lev Artsimovich
	Fazlur Khan	Invented the tube structural system and first employed it in his designs for the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartments, John Hancock Center and Sears Tower.
World Wide Web	Tim Berners-Lee
Visual Basic	Alan Cooper
XML	Jon Bosak

Towns and cities

Subject	Father/Mother	! Reason
Lan Kwai Fong	Allan Zeman	Noted for turning a small square of streets in
Subject	Father/Mother	! Reason
	[[Henry Ford">Central, Hong Kong

Transport

Subject	Father/Mother	! Reason
	[[Henry Ford	Noted for introducing a simple and affordable car for the ordinary American masses.
American Interstate Highway System	Dwight D. Eisenhower
	Gene Berg
Hot rod	Ed Winfield
	RJ DeVera	Influential for popularising the import car scene in the mid-1990s.
Kustom Kulture
Monster truck
Mountain bike	Gary Fisher
Rotary engine	Felix Wankel
	Cyrus Avery
Tailfin	Harley Earl
Traffic safety	William Phelps Eno
	Frank W. Cyr

See also

List of inventors

Father of medicare

Founders of statistics

References

Father or mother of something Father or mother of something, List of people known as

ar:آباء العلوم fa:فهرست افراد دارای لقب پدر یا مادر در یک زمینه

name	Course of Empire
background	group_or_band
origin	Dallas, Texas
genre	Post-punk, Industrial music, Alternative rock
years active	1988–1998
label	Carpe Diem RecordsZoo EntertainmentTVT Records
website	CourseOfEmpire.com
current members	Mike GraffVaughn StevensonChad LovellMichael JeromePaul Semrad
notable instruments	}}

Course of Empire was an Alternative / post-punk band based in Dallas, Texas.

Biography

Course of Empire was a hard-edged, post-industrial, alternative music group based in Dallas, Texas from 1988 to 1998. In the early days, large drums would be placed throughout the audience as a means to eliminate the separation between performer and audience. Inspired by the Kodo Drummers of Japan, C.o.E. sought to use the theater of mass drumming to illustrate their vision of a future culture that would evolve as a response to the exponentially increasing human population on the planet. This practice was stopped, however, when the drums ceased to be played by ever-increasing crowds, becoming dangerous missiles instead. The band retained one defining feature however: two drummers playing simultaneously (Michael Jerome and Chad Lovell) creating a propulsive, driving beat that underlaid many of the group's songs.

Song topics were initially of a more political and environmental stance (the name Course of Empire having come from a 5-piece series by 19th Century painter Thomas Cole). Later, the lyrical content would take on topics related to conspiracy theories and the personal quest of spirituality.

They released three studio albums over their ten year existence: one on the Dallas label Carpe Diem, one with Zoo Entertainment, and one with TVT Records. Additionally, they toured with industrial-metal groups such as Prong, Sister Machine Gun, Stabbing Westward, Young Gods and many others. The band's first two albums established the group's sound: precise, driving drums overlaid with heavy industrial guitars and hard-edged vocals. However, the group refused to conform to any particular genre, incorporating elements of Eastern and Middle Eastern music, tabla drumming, and electronic music into their songs. As film students at Southern Methodist University, members of the band used their knowledge to infuse their songs with references to the environment, culture and the effects of humankind on the planet.

The band released their first single/EP, ''Infested'', ahead of the ''Initiation'' album in 1993. The single featured two new songs, ''Joy'' and ''Let's Have A War'' (a cover of a song by Fear (band)), as well as a "Darwin Goodman" remix of ''Infested'' -- Darwin from naturalist/evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin, and Goodman from legendary big band clarinetist Benny Goodman. The remix sampled Goodman's performance of swinger Louis Prima's big band standard Sing, Sing, Sing and featured a different, swing-inspired drumbeat.

In 1995, producer John Fryer (Nine Inch Nails, Gravity Kills) was tapped to produce their third record, ''Telepathic Last Words'', as it featured more electronic-edged material. Soon after, the band found support in Dallas radio icon Redbeard who promoted the album weeks ahead of release on Dallas radio station Q102, including heavy airplay of ''New Maps'', which was scheduled to be the lead single from ''Telepathic Last Words''. Unfortunately, the Zoo record label folded in July 1996, just one month before the album was due to be released.

TVT Records signed the band by December 1996 after working out the licensing terms with BMG for the rights to ''Telepathic Last Words'' and the previous ''Initiation'' record. At TVT's request, the band recorded additional tracks with drummer Chad Lovell as producer. The new tracks were mixed in Hollywood at Larrabee Studios North with Dave Bianco at the helm. Some previous tracks were also remixed by Bianco. ''Telepathic Last Words'', originally mastered by Bob Ludwig for the Zoo release, was re-mastered by Howie Weinberg in September 1997 and was finally released in January 1998, almost two years after its original completion. As part of the new deal, the scheduled national lead single was changed from ''New Maps'' to ''The Information''. The band received favorable press in the form of a two-page cover story in a local alternative weekly newsmagazine, the Dallas Observer, as well as mentions in Spin (magazine) and trade publications. However, a lack of promotion by the record company prevented the song from seeing a wide release on modern-rock playlists across the United States. ''The Information'' was picked up by local Dallas alternative-rock station Q102 (KTXQ) after the success of ''New Maps'' on Redbeard's show but failed to gain traction and was dropped from the playlist by 1998. Plans to release either ''Persian Song'' or the newly re-recorded version of ''Coming of the Century'' as singles did not come to fruition.

One track from ''Telepathic Last Words'', ''The Information'', was included on the soundtrack for the film Dark City. A music video was also produced featuring scenes from the movie and was aired on MTV at the time of the movie's premiere. The band toured with Rob Halford's ill-fated "Two" project along with John 5 of Marilyn Manson fame, and also opened for The Sisters of Mercy in L.A. that spring.

The group disbanded after ten years together over frustration with management, booking, and lack of a proper A&R; rep. The final show, played in July 1998 at Trees in the Deep Ellum area of Dallas, Texas, drew a vibrant, energetic group of fans determined to give a lively send-off to their favorite band. After the crowd had been pumped up by local opening acts Caulk and Doosu, Course of Empire took the stage and electrified the audience by performing some of their earlier songs, including most of the ''Initiation'' album, instead of concentrating on the new material from ''Telepathic Last Words''.

After the group split in 1998, drummer Michael Jerome and guitarist Mike Graff collaborated with Van Eric Martin to form the group Halls of the Machine who released their debut album, Atmospheres for Lovers and Sleepers, in 2001.

In 2004, Mike Graff and Martin Baird at Verge Music Works recording studio mixed the still-existing 24 tracks of the final performance at Trees in Dallas, TX from 1998 and personally financed and self released the tracks, titled ''Phone Calls From the Dead''. The group's website, courseofempire.com, currently offers all of their major releases as downloads in MP3 format free of charge, and the band also maintains a Myspace page under "Course of Empire".

Group Members

Mike Graff 1988-1998 (guitar)

Vaughn Stevenson 1988-1998 (vocals)

Paul Semrad 1988-1998 (bass, backing vocals)

Anthony Headley 1988-1991 (drums)

Chad Lovell 1989-1998 (drums)

Michael Jerome 1994-1998 (drums)

Other performing members: Dave Abbruzzese (drums) Kyle Thomas (drums)

Discography

Albums

1990: ''Course of Empire'' (Carpe Diem Records)

* After selling over 5000 copies in Dallas alone following its November release, BMG subsidiary Zoo Entertainment signed the band in August, 1991. This first album was reissued on the new label in January, 1992

1994: ''Initiation''

1998: ''Telepathic Last Words'' (TVT Records)

Other Releases

2004: ''Phone Calls From the Dead'' (Lust)

2004: ''Hiss'' DVD (Self-released)

2008: ''Initiation Demos'' (Self-released)

Singles and EPs

''Infested! [CD]'' - 1993

''Infested! [12]'' - 1994

''The Information [CD]'' - 1998

Connections

Halls of the Machine

Notes and references

External links

Official site

Category:Musical groups from Texas Category:Zoo Entertainment artists Category:TVT Records artists