A Mind at Play, Jimmy Soni
A Mind at Play, Jimmy Soni
List: $20.99 | Sale: $14.70
Club: $10.49

A Mind at Play
How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age

Author: Jimmy Soni, Rob Goodman

Narrator: Jonathan Yen

Unabridged: 11 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/18/2017

Synopsis

Claude Shannon was a tinkerer, a playful wunderkind, a groundbreaking polymath, and a digital pioneer whose insights made the Information Age possible. He constructed fire-breathing trumpets and customized unicycles, outfoxed Vegas casinos, and built juggling robots, but he also wrote the seminal text of the digital revolution. That work allowed scientists to measure and manipulate information as objectively as any physical object. His work gave mathematicians and engineers the tools to bring that world to pass.

Now, Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman bring Claude Shannon's story to life. It's the story of a small-town boy from Michigan whose career stretched from the age of room-sized computers powered by gears and string to the age of the Apple desktop. It's the story of the origins of information in the tunnels of MIT and the "idea factory" of Bell Labs, in the "scientists' war" with Nazi Germany, and in the work of Shannon's collaborators and rivals. It's the story of Shannon's life as an often reclusive, always playful genius. With access to Shannon's family and friends, A Mind At Play explores the life and times of this singular innovator and creative genius.

About Jimmy Soni

Jimmy Soni is the managing editor of the Huffington Post and a former speechwriter whose writing and commentary have appeared in the Atlantic online and on NPR, among other outlets.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Charlene

Now this is how to write a biography! I recently read a biography of Paul Dirac that glossed over his achievements and highlighted his personal relationships. If you know anything about Dirac, you would know how absurd it is to focus on his personal relationships. The author could have at least give......more

Goodreads review by Brian

If you are familiar with the history of computing, there are a few names that you'll know well enough biographically to turn them into real people. Babbage and Lovelace, Turing and von Neumann, Gates and Jobs. But there's one of the greats who may conjure up nothing more than a name - Claude Shannon......more

Goodreads review by George

Someone like Claude Shannon presents a real challenge to all biographers. For he was important enough to the world of mathematics, communications, computer science and engineering to deserve a biography but has led a quiet and private life to make the job of documenting his life quite difficult. Luc......more

Goodreads review by Nelson

Avaliação: 3.5 Claude Shannon [1916-2001] é um dos investigadores do século XX que maior impacto teve na sociedade do século XXI, contudo é praticamente desconhecido desta, e mesmo até de uma parte considerável da academia. Por isso, uma biografia sobre o seu legado — "A Mind at Play: How Claude Sha......more

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