Claude Shannon Quotes

• We know the past but cannot control it. We control the future but cannot know it.

  Claude Shannon

  Time, Past, May

  136 Copy quote

• The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point.

  Claude Shannon

  Communication, Fundamentals, Messages

  Claude Elwood Shannon, Warren Weaver (1962). “The mathematical theory of communication”

  79 Copy quote

• Information is the #resolution of uncertainty.

  Claude Shannon

  Information, Resolution, Uncertainty

  67 Copy quote

• I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans. And I am rooting for the machines.

  Claude Shannon

  Dog, Robots, Machines

  Omni Magazine, 1987.

  64 Copy quote

• I am very seldom interested in applications. I am more interested in the elegance of a problem. Is it a good problem, an interesting problem?

  Claude Shannon

  Interesting, Problem, Elegance

  58 Copy quote

• My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it 'information,' but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it 'uncertainty.' When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, 'You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.'

  Claude Shannon

  Names, Ideas, Two

  "Scientific American", Vol. 225, (p. 180), 1971.

  50 Copy quote

• Use the word 'cybernetics', Norbert, because nobody knows what it means. This will always put you at an advantage in arguments.

  Claude Shannon

  Mean, Cybernetics, Use

  50 Copy quote

• Cousins are part of your life so stick with cuz, not friends.

  Claude Shannon

  Cousin, Cuz, Sticks

  33 Copy quote

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