At the University of Michigan, Shannon dual degreed, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in both electrical engineering and mathematics in 1936. A 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in electrical engineering, his thesis concerned switching circuit theory, demonstrating that electrical applications of Boolean algebra could construct any logical numerical relationship,[10] thereby establishing the theory behind digital computing and digital circuits.[11] The thesis has been claimed to be the most important master's thesis of all time,[10] as in 1985, Howard Gardner described it as "possibly the most important, and also the most famous, master's thesis of the century",[12] while Herman Goldstine described it as "surely... one of the most important master's theses ever written... It helped to change digital circuit design from an art to a science."[13] It has also been called the "birth certificate of the digital revolution",[14] and it won the 1939 Alfred Noble Prize.[15] Shannon then graduated with a PhD in mathematics from MIT in 1940,[16] with his thesis focused on genetics, with it deriving important results, but it went unpublished.[17]
Shannon contributed to the field of cryptanalysis for national defense of the United States during World War II, including his fundamental work on codebreaking and secure telecommunications, writing a paper which is considered one of the foundational pieces of modern cryptography,[18] with his work described as "a turning point, and marked the closure of classical cryptography and the beginning of modern cryptography."[19] The work of Shannon is the foundation of secret-key cryptography, including the work of Horst Feistel, the Data Encryption Standard (DES), Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), and more.[19] As a result, Shannon has been called the "founding father of modern cryptography".[20]
Shannon made numerous contributions to the field of artificial intelligence,[3] writing papers on programming a computer for chess, which have been immensely influential,[27][28] and also his Theseus machine was the first electrical device to learn by trial and error, being one of the first examples of artificial intelligence.[29][30] He also co-organized and participated in the Dartmouth workshop of 1956, considered the founding event of the field of artificial intelligence.[31][32] He also made contributions to multiple other fields, such as detection theory and combinatorics.[33]
Rodney Brooks declared that Shannon was the 20th century engineer who contributed the most to 21st century technologies.[29] Shannon's achievements are considered to be on par, in his field, with those of Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton in theirs.[7][21][5][34][35]
^ abPoundstone, William (2005). Fortune's Formula : The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street. Hill & Wang. p. 20. ISBN978-0-8090-4599-0.