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Claude Shannon

1916–2001 · American

Laid the mathematical foundation for digitizing information, and pioneered computer chess and search.

Contribution: Founded information theory — a math of how much surprise a message carries, measured in bits.
Showed how to send signals reliably over noisy channels with encoding and redundancy.
Built early experiments in computer chess and search, treating play as a tree of choices.
Key observations: Information can be measured separately from meaning — bits are about possibility, not understanding.
Noise is normal; good systems plan for errors instead of pretending channels are perfect.
Search through move trees is a concrete way machines can "look ahead."
Conclusions: Digital life — files, networks, compression, encryption — sits on Shannon's bit.
When AI models "compress" language into patterns, they are still in the business of representing information efficiently.
Chess and games remain a classroom for search, evaluation, and limits of lookahead.

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