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Author Nahin, Paul J

Title The logician and the engineer : how George Boole and Claude Shannon created the information age / Paul J. Nahin
Published Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2012]

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Description 1 online resource
Contents George Boole and Claude Shannon : two mini-biographies -- Boolean algebra -- Logical switching circuits -- Boole, Shannon, and probability -- Some combinatorial design logic examples -- Sequential-state digital circuits -- Turing machines -- Beyond Boole and Shannon -- For the future : the anti-amphibological machine
Summary Boolean algebra, also called Boolean logic, is at the heart of the electronic circuitry in everything we use--from our computers and cars, to our kitchen gadgets and home appliances. How did a system of mathematics established in the Victorian era become the basis for such incredible technological achievements a century later? In The Logician and the Engineer, best-selling popular math writer Paul Nahin combines engaging problems and a colorful historical narrative to tell the remarkable story of how two men in different eras--mathematician and philosopher George Boole (1815-1864) and electrical engineer and pioneering information theorist Claude Shannon (1916-2001)--advanced Boolean logic and became founding fathers of the electronic communications age. Presenting the dual biographies of Boole and Shannon, Nahin examines the history of Boole's innovative ideas, and considers how they led to Shannon's groundbreaking work on electrical relay circuits and information theory. Along the way, Nahin presents logic problems for readers to solve and talks about the contributions of such key players as Georg Cantor, Tibor Rado, and Marvin Minsky--as well as the crucial role of Alan Turing's "Turing machine"--In the development of mathematical logic and data transmission. Nahin takes readers from fundamental concepts to a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of how a modern digital machine such as the computer is constructed. Nahin also delves into the newest ideas in quantum mechanics and thermodynamics in order to explore computing's possible limitations in the twenty-first century and beyond. The Logician and the Engineer shows how a form of mathematical logic and the innovations of two men paved the way for the digital technology of the modern world
Analysis A Mathematical Theory of Communication
Aristotelian logic
Boolean algebra
Boolean analysis
Boolean functions
Boolean logic
Claude Shannon
George Boole
NOR latch
The Language Clarifier
Turing machines
biography
communications age
computers
computing machines
conditional probability
digital circuitry
digital machine design
digital technology
electrical engineer
electromagnetic relays
electronic communications
error correction
error detection
flip-flops
information transmission
legalese
mathematical logic
mathematicians
mathematics
physics
relays
sequential-state problems
sets
switches
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Boole, George, 1815-1864.
Shannon, Claude Elwood, 1916-2001.
Shannon, Claude Elwood, 1916-2001
Boole, George, 1815-1864
Boole, George / 1815-1864.
Shannon, Claude Elwood / 1916-2001.
Boole, George, 1815-1864
Shannon, Claude Elwood, 1916-2001
Logicians -- Great Britain -- Biography
Electrical engineers -- United States -- Biography
Computer logic.
MATHEMATICS -- History & Philosophy.
COMPUTERS -- History.
Computer logic
Electrical engineers
Logicians
Great Britain
United States
Genre/Form Electronic books
Biographies
Biographies.
Biographies.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781400844654
1400844657