Product Description

Scientific knowledge grows at a phenomenal pace-but few books have had as lasting an impact or played as important a role in our modern world as "The Mathematical Theory of Communication", published originally as a paper on communication theory in the "Bell System Technical Journal" more than fifty years ago. Republished in book form shortly thereafter, it has since gone through four hardcover and sixteen paperback printings. It is a revolutionary work, astounding in its foresight and contemporaneity. The University of Illinois Press is pleased and honored to issue this commemorative reprinting of a classic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #93114 in Books
• Published on: 1949-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Review
"Since many volumes of literature have been written both about the contents of this book and as a result of its impact on the field, suffice it to say here that anyone interested in the efficient transfer of information from one point to another should be familiar with this work." Mathematics of Computation "Has proved invaluable to biologists and psychologists as well as to physicists and engineers." The Times "This book cannot be ignored by anyone with direct professional concern with these applications and many applied physicists without this concern should, like the reviewer, find the book absorbing." British Journal of Applied Physics "A beautiful example of a theory that unifies hitherto separate branches of physical science... Dr. Weaver makes important suggestions as to how this unity may be extended to semantics and pragmatics." Philosophical Review "Before this there was no universal way of measuring the complexities of messages or the capabilities of circuits to transmit them. Shannon gave us a mathematical way... invaluable ... to scientists and engineers the world over." Scientific American

Customer Reviews

A forgotten masterpiece
This is probably the most imprtant book in the whole of communications theory. Although limited in some respects in what it achieved (it was surpassed by some later work by Kolmogorov et al.) this is still the fundamental text in its area. The reader will find that some of the terminology will appear somewhat arcane - a result of 40 years of the development of information processing - but the content will more than maks up for it. It is a shame that this book has become largely forgotten.This book is truly a work of historical importance and a keystone in the developmemt of the communications industry.

Seminal, far reaching, forgotten book
Glibly referred to by anyone with a smattering of data and telecommunications savvy, few have ever read it. As usual with breakthru authors, their efforts get commercially applied and the insightfulness of the original work is closeted, where it can conveniently be academically referred to "what he said was..." (ellipsis filled in by whatever your professor used to characterize the book.) Shannon took an early art form to a rigorous science. This is the book reporting the method of the since-evolved science of data communications, and a good bit more. The fact that I am the first reviewer in this forum speaks eloquently of the paucity of readers and the concomitant large number of data communication experts who have ignored the now larger issues it discloses than the single commercial application of one of its conclusions. Read it. You will agree with me that focusing on the source rather than the sink (terms he coined) is the weakness of communication theory as currently modeled on Shannon's first, obvious conclusion. The development of the digital computer over the past five decades has opened up the way to harness the ideas that lie latent in this excellent, groundbreaking book.

Harvey B. Vedder ret Sr Data Comm Eng, Bell Atlantic us000483@mindspring.com

Valuble information for book report
The work of Shannon and Weaver was good. Maybe this book should be used in more classrooms as text book.