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Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)

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Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)

#41

Post by jeifneioka »

warner25 wrote: post #37
jasonhong wrote: post #13

Some more fun facts about Claude Shannon, from this New Yorker article ( https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/claude-s... ): He built a flame-throwing trumpet and a rocket-powered Frisbee. He built a chess-playing automaton that, after its opponent moved, made witty remarks. Inspired by the late artificial-intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, he designed what was dubbed the Ultimate Machine: flick the s…

My favorite fun fact is that, sandwiched between his revolutionary work on circuits and information theory, his actual PhD dissertation was on genetics; like something kind of unrelated to the rest of his life's work and largely forgotten. As a current PhD candidate, I think about that a lot.

Sometimes I can't help but feel like the past had more low hanging fruit for making big discoveries. Not that anything in genetics was particularly low hanging, but discoveries in that field were perhaps more accessible to somebody who had "only" studied it for a few years. Modern breakthroughs nowadays are more likely to require huge teams of people working for a decade or more and needing funding to match.

Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)

#43

Post by hermitcrab »

machiaweliczny wrote: post #8
jjcc wrote: post #5

One of the photo shows his highly concentration. I have a hypothesis that many world class masters have talent to get into "Flow State". Juggling is one of the activity that associate with the state. Another example is DHH who created RoR eventually became professional sport car racer. It's well know that in sports area, many top players have the talent. My guess is it's also applicable on "mind sports".

I’ve watched vide with guy that supposedly has 200IQ and in his view IQ is ability to focus on small on small set of things but many high IQ ppl can’t „refocus” it easily and aren’t doing well in life.

Intelligence is such a multi-faceted thing that is seems ridiculous to try to reduce it to a single measure and I am highly suspicious of any that tries to do so.

Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)

#44

Post by sourcepluck »

jll29 wrote: post #26
kaycebasques wrote: post #17

From what I read in The Dream Machine , Shannon sounded like a super cool guy. I love the fact that he talked down the overhype of his own field: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41972922

I'm still reading it, but apparently he stopped talking to his own mother forever after she refused to give him a cookie intended for guests.

Finally, a human being brave enough to take cookies as seriously as they deserve.

Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)

#46

Post by akira2501 »

taeric wrote: post #31
lqet wrote: post #7

Kind of off-topic, but one thing that really confuses me about Shannon's biography is the following: according to the authors of "A Mind at Play", Shannon was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1983 [0], and the illness progressed "very quickly". They continue: > In too-brief moments, the family was given a flash of the Claude they knew. [His daughter] Peggy remembered that she “actually had a conversation with hi…

Those examples are ones that can happen without knowing where you are, or who exactly you are currently talking to. Dementia can take that away, as well; but often people notice people with dementia not engaging directly and specifically with them in the now. As an example, my grandparents would often think I was my father when I would visit them. If I tried to get them to talk to me, as me, expect confusion and noth…

My grandfather had Alzheimer's. I visited him in the nursing home. He mistook me for his late brother, and presumed that we were about to go on a trip, that he had already taken decades ago, to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I didn't know what to do so I just played along with it. We spent the next hour having the most in depth and amazing conversation about the history of hist Baseball experiences from his youth. He remembered nearly everything from that period of his life and we discussed it in exceptional detail.

I walked away both elated that we could have that moment and incredibly sad that most victims of this disease seem entirely trapped within it. They're still in there. They're still that same person.

Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)

#47

Post by Toothies »

jgwil2 wrote: post #32
lqet wrote: post #7

Kind of off-topic, but one thing that really confuses me about Shannon's biography is the following: according to the authors of "A Mind at Play", Shannon was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1983 [0], and the illness progressed "very quickly". They continue: > In too-brief moments, the family was given a flash of the Claude they knew. [His daughter] Peggy remembered that she “actually had a conversation with hi…

If he was diagnosed in 1983 and lived until 2001, then he is in the 99th percentile in terms of years of life after diagnosis. To say that his illness progressed "very quickly" is probably just incorrect, relatively speaking.

Well, my grandmother had dementia.

Her illness progressed very quickly in the sense that it only took her about a year for her to regress into an infant mentally. She spent about 10 - 13 years in bed screaming like a child.

My point being that dementia can progress quickly, but you can still live with it for a long time (if you are unlucky enough). We, as in her family, spent years hoping she would die, while she spent years suffering.

Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)

#49

Post by ColinWright »

CSMastermind wrote: post #48

For anyone interested in the math of juggling here's a Youtube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmCXbh-zw61C7jR2YofYx... It's a fasincating topic that had far more complexity than I initially expected.

I'm featured on that list multiple times.

AMA

Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)

#50

Post by ColinWright »

docdeek wrote: post #12

> Ronald Graham, a fellow mathematician-juggler... I first read about Graham as a friend and collaborator of Paul Erdos in 'The Man Who Loved Only Numbers'. As well as his mathematical achievements, Graham was also at one time president of the Internal Jugglers Association. If you have never read the book, it is a fascinating insight into the lives and non-math idiosyncrasies of Erdos and his fellow wizards.

I have an Erdös number of 2[] via a paper, co-authored with Ron Graham, on the topic of the maths of juggling.

AMA.

[] I also have an Erdös number of the second type of 3, but that doesn't involve Ron Graham or juggling.

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