1938 AD |
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| Around the 1850s, the British mathematician George Boole was busily inventing a new form of mathematics, in which he represented logical expressions in a mathematical form now known as Boolean Algebra. | ||
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| Unfortunately, with the exception of students of philosophy and symbolic logic, Boolean Algebra was destined to remain largely unknown and unused for the better part of a century. In fact it was not until 1938 that Claude E. Shannon published an article based on his master's thesis at MIT. (Shannon's thesis has since been described as: "Possibly the most important master's thesis of the twentieth century.") | In his paper, which was widely circulated, Shannon showed how Boole's concepts of TRUE and FALSE could be used to represent the functions of switches in electronic circuits. It is difficult to convey just how important this concept was; suffice it to say that Shannon had provided electronics engineers with the mathematical tool they needed to design digital electronic circuits, and these techniques remain the cornerstone of digital electronic design to this day. | |
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| Apropos of nothing at all, Shannon is also credited with the invention of the rocket-powered Frisbee, and is famous for riding down the corridors at Bell Laboratories on a unicycle while simultaneously juggling four balls. | ||
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| These notes are abstracted from the book Bebop BYTES Back (An Unconventional Guide to Computers) Copyright Information |
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