Thank this man for digital communication, data compression (ZIP, MP3), coding theory, and cryptography.
Claude Shannon’s biggest scientific contribution was the creation of information theory in his 1948 paper “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.”
He defined “information” mathematically, introducing the concept of bits (binary digits) as the fundamental unit. He borrowed the term from thermodynamics to describe the uncertainty or information content in a message. Shannon entropy became the foundation of data compression and coding. He proved the Shannon limit (channel capacity theorem): there is a maximum rate (capacity) at which data can be transmitted over a noisy channel with arbitrarily low error, using proper encoding. His framework underlies digital communication, data compression (ZIP, MP3), coding theory, cryptography, the internet, mobile phones, and AI.