These are multiway communications that we do not understand. As I looked at such things, I saw something about the future that is evolving into the era of information. So this is the direction I went in my career. It has taken me into many exciting problems and many exciting to- pics and many exciting places. I do not think that there is any other career that I could have chosen that touches on algebraic geometry and physics and magnetic recording and integrated cir- cuits and deep space communications and radar design and economics and many other things.
Information theory touches many topics and it is a rewarding place in which to spend one's life.
If we look back to the nineteenth century, we now think of it as the age of energy. This was the time when technologists developed steam engines and automata and devices. In the background of that whole culture developed the subject of thermodynamics. I am sure that thermodynamics was developed by a small group of people as the intellectual underpinnings of the age of energy. It was not developed by the world at large.