Description

New York: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, July, 1928. 250 by 170mm (9¾ by 6¾ inches). Complete issue in original wrappers. First edition. Very good with light soiling to wrappers and damage to pages 604-605 (in the article by Affel).

First printing of one of the foundational works in information theory. In the opening paragraph of his landmark paper, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” Claude Shannon credits Hartley’s “Transmission of Information” (along with the work of Nyquist) as forming “the basis” for his theories. R.V.L. Hartley (1888–1970) was a research engineer at Bell Labs and the inventor of the Hartley oscillator. He was one of the first to make progress in quantitatively measuring the capacities of various types of information systems—telephone, telegraph, television, etc.—to transmit information.

Hook and Norman Origins of Cyberspace, No. 316.

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