Article ID: CBB319733452

Under Shannon’s Bandwagon. Rethinking the Reception of Information Theory in Thermal Physics, 1948-1957 (2023)

unapi

In this paper I analyze the historical case of how Shannon’s theory of information, among other alternative theories, began to be applied rapidly and systematically within thermal physics in the 1950s. After evaluating this theory and the intellectual context in which it is inserted, I argue that it was not the formal-conceptual features of Shannon’s theory but the particular motivations of influential scientists such as von Neumann, Weaver and Wiener that properly made it possible for information science to become deeply rooted in thermal physics during the 1950s, as shown by the proposals of Brillouin and Jaynes.

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Authors & Contributors
Abir-Am, Pnina Geraldine
Allen, Colin
Currier, James David
Downey, Greg
Ferreira, Paulo J. S. G.
Fosse, Sébastien de la
Journals
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Circumscribere: International Journal for the History of Science
Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology
History of the Human Sciences
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
科学史研究 Kagakusi Kenkyu (History of Science)
Publishers
Princeton University
Indiana University
University of Pittsburgh
University of Toronto
Columbia University
Lexington Books
Concepts
Information theory
Information science
Information technology
Cybernetics
Probability and statistics
Computers and computing
People
Shannon, Claude Elwood
Darwin, Charles Robert
Weaver, Warren
Wiener, Norbert
Babbage, Charles
Barnd, Chester I.
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
21st century
20th century, early
19th century
18th century
Places
United States
Soviet Union
Germany
Institutions
Rockefeller Foundation
Universität Stuttgart
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