Description

Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1949. 240 by 160mm (9½ by 6¼ inches). Maroon canvas boards; vii, [1], 117 pp. First Edition (lacking dust jacket). Large autograph: “P.M.S. Blackett” on flyleaf. Very good plus. A fresh and clean copy.

Considered “the magna carta of the information age” according to Scientific American, Shannon’s work was the first to provide a general theory of communication applicable to telegraph, telephone, and computers. This work was responsible for introducing the term “bit” (for binary digit) into the published literature and for giving the term its current definition. This is the first time Shannon’s work was presented in book format. Exceedingly important to the history of information and discussed at length in Origins of Cyberspace.

This copy was owned by British physicist Patrick M.S. Blackett (1897–1974) and bears his autograph. Blackett received the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics and was the first person to prove that radioactivity could cause the nuclear transmutation of one chemical element to another.

Hook & Norman Origins of Cyberspace, No. 881.

An important book owned by an important physicist.

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