Author Jimmy Soni discusses Claude Shannon's classified wartime research at Bell Labs, which established the mathematical foundation of unbreakable encryption.
“I believe it's called a mathematical theory of cryptography. And he proves the existence of a one-time pad the existence of an unbreakable code.”
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More from Jimmy Soni
AssertionSupported
Betty Shannon did uncredited math work on Claude Shannon's early papers
“A lot of his earliest papers are in her handwriting and she would do the math, do the intervening math, she would challenge him, she would include historical references, literary references in papers, and she never got any credit for this,”
Jimmy SoniJan 2, 2019▶ 25:46a16z Podcast | From Mind at Play to Making the Information Age
AssertionOpen · timeframe Aug 2022
Bell Labs math researchers had total autonomy over problem selection
“He joins the mathematical research group, and they basically go around cherry-picking the problems that they would like to solve, and they don't have to do anything they don't want to do.”
Jimmy SoniJan 2, 2019▶ 17:58a16z Podcast | From Mind at Play to Making the Information Age
Insight
Pairing academic mathematicians with engineers amplifies corporate R&D problem solving
“Realizes that there are a bunch of academic mathematicians who don't want to stay in academia and you don't really know what to do with them. And he sort of says, well, if you invite them in and attach them to engineers, attach them to physicists, They can hel…”
Jimmy SoniJan 2, 2019▶ 18:10a16z Podcast | From Mind at Play to Making the Information Age
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Practical applications of Shannon's information theory only emerged in the 1980s
“What we take from the paper only starts to matter in the eighties. And so at the time, this was still a discussion very much in theory, but the power and force of his theory was immediately seen.”
Jimmy SoniJan 2, 2019▶ 23:05a16z Podcast | From Mind at Play to Making the Information Age
AssertionSupported
Claude Shannon avoided the WWII draft via a Bell Labs contract
“Those mentors get him a wartime contract working at Bell Laboratories that spares him from the draft.”
Jimmy SoniJan 2, 2019▶ 13:49a16z Podcast | From Mind at Play to Making the Information Age
AssertionSupported
Shannon outlined information theory to Vannevar Bush 10 years before publishing
“He actually wrote a note to Vannevar Bush first Suggesting that he was working on this, that the theory that all messages or all communications were essentially the same. This is 10 years before he ever publishes the paper.”
Jimmy SoniJan 2, 2019▶ 20:02a16z Podcast | From Mind at Play to Making the Information Age
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