Claude Shannon/Bibliography

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• "A symbolic analysis of relay and switching circuits" (1938) - master's thesis in EE at MIT
  • This linked Boolean algebra to the design of digital circuits (and called it "Switching Algebra")
• "A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography" (1945) - Bell Laboratories Memorandum MM 45-110-02. Classified at the time of its publication.
• "A mathematical theory of communication" (1948) - published in two parts in Bell System Technical Journal: July, vol. 27, pp. 379-423, and Oct., vol. 28, pp. 623-656.
  • This paper coined the use of the word "bit" and had important implications about the maximum amount of information that could be shoved into a given amount of spectrum before being overwhelmed by noise, a fundamental limit that became known as Shannon's Law. It would be 45 years before the scientific world was able to verify all the predictions in this paper.
• "Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems (1949), Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 28, pp. 656-715, 1949.
• "Communication In The Presence Of Noise (1949), Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE), vol. 37, pp. 10–21, Jan. 1949.
  • This paper extends and elaborates on "A Mathematical Theory of Communication". It was reprinted in Proceedings of the IEEE in 1984 and again in 1998.
• "Probability of error for optimal codes in a Gaussian channel" (1959) originally in Bell Systems Technical Journal, vol. 38, pp. 611–656, 1959.