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Book Review: A Mind At Play, Claude Shannon

Rating: 8/10

Overall, I've found this book extremely entertaining. The most inspiring feature of Claude Shannon is his curiosity and his modesty.

As a shy person, Claude Shannon's focus early on his career was to understand mathematics and solve important problems with it. He took Vannevar Bush as a mentor and learned from the people who came before him to build the information theory.

Before he started working on information theory he worked on a variety of areas including creating an "algebra of genetics", even before we understood the origins of the DNA.

Once he created the information theory, he received praise from all over the world. Receiving honorary doctorates and the Kyoto prize. Throughout this time, he remained a modest person worrying about whether people would still find him interesting afte repeating the same theories time and time again.

He had a slew of trinkets and gadgets in his garage. His time at Bell Labs and MIT afforded him the time to expand his thinking and not take his work too seriously. He delved into the world of juggling, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

He created a mouse that could exit mazes, a chess-playing machine, and a clothe hanging robot that would rotate all of his doctorate robes.

His most impressive feat is not being chained to his past accomplishments. He focused on following his curiosity wherever life would take him. He joined the juggling club at MIT and published one of the first papers on the "Mathematics of Juggling". Once he got into AI he predicted machines would one day mesh with humans and think and work like us.

Claude Shannon is an inspiration for those seeking to work beyond their career. To those seeking a role model for how to follow your curiosity, think deeply, and be modest after you've been receiving acclaim for your accomplishments. He is also an inspirational family man, he would stay at home and spend a lot of time with his family. Having his colleagues visit him whenever they'd want to discuss ideas.

I found this biography to reassure the power of following your curiosity every step along the way. Even as you get older to keep learning, asking questions, and reading from different fields. Claude Shannon's foundation in math allowed him to use that strong base of knowledge to dissect and analyze other fields. It emphasizes the importance of building a strong base of knowledge in your field and find connections with others.

Things important to remember from the book: