Claude Shannon

I was very fortunate to be at Bell Labs at a time when there was a lot of freedom to pursue whatever you wanted.

The chess-playing machine was just a hobby, but it taught me a lot about programming.

The mouse was another one of my hobbies. It was a way to explore the idea of intelligent machines.

I think the future of computing is in parallel processing.

The digital revolution was inevitable once we understood the nature of information.

My work provided a theoretical foundation for the digital age.

I never set out to create a new field, it just happened.

The most exciting part of research is when you discover something new.

I always tried to simplify things as much as possible.

The beauty of a good theory is its simplicity.

I believe that information theory will continue to be a fundamental tool in many fields.

The idea of entropy in information theory is analogous to entropy in thermodynamics.

Coding is essential for reliable communication over noisy channels.

The limits of communication are set by the channel capacity.

I was always fascinated by how things work.

My work was about the abstract properties of information, not its content.

The digital representation of information is key to its manipulation and transmission.

I think the future will see even more pervasive use of digital communication.

The concept of a bit as a fundamental unit of information was very powerful.

Information is not the same as meaning.