num_pages: 384
description: The life and times of one of the foremost intellects of the twentieth century: Claude Shannonthe 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 wed be living in todayand 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 Shannons full story for the first time. Its 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. Its 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 Shannons collaborators and rivals thinkers like Alan Turing John von Neumann Vannevar Bush and Norbert Wiener.And its the story of Shannons life as an often reclusive always playful genius. With access to Shannons family and friends A Mind at Play brings this singular innovator and creative genius to life.
language: English
title: A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age
publisher: Simon & Schuster