October 1948
Claude Shannon publishes information theory
Claude Shannon's 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication' appeared in October 1948 — defining entropy, channels, and digital information.
What it was for
Shannon's work underlies compression, error correction, cryptography, and every digital network. Programmers encounter his ideas in hashing, coding theory, and the bit as the atomic unit of data.
People
- Claude Shannon — researcher
Why it's here
Information theoryMathematics of data compression and reliable communication — Shannon's framework for bits and entropy. is the mathematical foundation of digital computing and networking.
Why it mattered
It quantified information and set limits on reliable communication.
What it solved
Engineers lacked a unified theory for noise, compression, and channel capacity.
Media
ImageClaude ShannonTekniska museet, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons