so this story starts in the year 2000
well a vision of it anyway fantasies of
the future from the past and most of
them amazingly have come true here's how
they imagine skype for example except
something's missing can you see it's the
future sure but it's all kind of
mechanical it's all wood and brass and
wires a hundred years ago we imagined an
entire orchestra being played by just
one guy with his feet but we couldn't in
our wildest dreams imagine all of these
instruments contained inside one of
these so at some point in the very
recent past we've made a huge mental
leap into a world where paper is pixels
and film never fades where you can forge
a van Gogh with a click of just two
buttons it's so complex and fast-moving
but would you believe me if I told you
it all rests on the most simple of ideas
an idea so elegant in its simplicity it
powers our information age in the days
before the information age we had a big
problem with information itself anytime
you try to send a message from one place
to another something always gets in the
way the original signal is always
distorted by noise of some kind wherever
there is signal there is also noise I
want you all to listen in while I talk
on this telephone so what can you do
well back then the best anyone could do
was to boost the signal but then of
course all you do is boost the noise
well I don't think any of you could
really understand what I was saying
thing is we were thinking about
information or wrong we were obsessed
with what a message meant a Renoir and a
receipt they're completely different
right you can possibly think of them in
the same way or could you
like so many breakthroughs the answer
came from an unexpected place a
brilliant mathematician with a flair for
blackjack I'd like you to meet Claude
Shannon the most important man you've
probably never heard of okay let's play
a game remember this card got it the
great thing about mathematicians is all
they really care about our numbers and
that's exactly how Claude Shannon solve
this problem he saw information as
numbers so which card is yours well who
knows but what you do know is that if
you were to pick one of these cards that
random you have a 1 in 52 chance of the
card being yours right for Claude
Shannon any message was just a card on a
blackjack table a probability one of a
whole series of other choices whether
you were trying to send a love letter or
a random string of letters he didn't
care to him they were all just
probabilities
now that's an abstract idea I know so
let's try and simplify it right down
that's what Shannon did he said if
information was a probability what is
the most simple probability there is
what is the most simple answer to any
question it heads or tails right yes or
no on and off 1 and 0
he realized that you could take anything
words music pictures and if you could
break it down into small enough pieces
you could ask each one a simple question
yes or no Shannon published his ideas in
1948 and at just the same time in the
same building actually a group of
engineers were finishing work on one of
these a tiny yes no answering machine if
the answers yes the switch is on if it's
no the switch is off one transistor can
answer one yes or no question for
example is this square going to be black
or white the answer can only be a one or
a zero one binary digit or one bit of
information do that enough times and you
have yourself an image now two
transistors can answer four questions
for each pixel producing for possible
colors three transistors can answer
eight questions creating eight bits of
information for transistors can answer
16 questions five transistors can answer
32 questions and up it goes now it
doesn't get rid of noise but sending
information in small discrete pieces
makes the chances of errors smaller as
well no matter how complex the digital
world is never forget that it's all
built on this simple solid foundation
that's how it works so well and Claude
Shannon answer the question that no one
else was even asking and in doing so
changed the world forever I can only
think of one other person who's done
that but he was a private man and rarely
gave interviews unless it was about his
passion for toys and games in the
cruelest of ironies the man who gave us
the information age lost the last years
of his life to out Simers he died in
2001
you