The Logician and the Engineer : : How George Boole and Claude Shannon Created the Information Age / / Paul J. Nahin.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Nahin, Paul J.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2012]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (248 p.) :; 2 halftones. 41 line illus. 25 tables.

Boolean algebra, also called Boolean logic, is at the heart of the electronic circuitry in everything we use-from our computers and cars, to home appliances. How did a system of mathematics established in the Victorian era become the basis for such incredible technological achievements a century later? In The Logician and the Engineer, Paul Nahin combines engaging problems and a colorful historical narrative to tell the remarkable story of how two men in different eras-mathematician and philosopher George Boole and electrical engineer and pioneering information theorist Claude Shannon-advanced Boolean logic and became founding fathers of the electronic communications age. Nahin takes readers from fundamental concepts to a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of modern digital machines, in order to explore computing and its possible limitations in the twenty-first century and beyond.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. What You Need To Know to Read This Book -- 2. Introduction -- 3. George Boole and Claude Shannon -- 4. Boolean Algebra -- 5. Logic Switching Circuits -- 6. Boole, Shannon, and Probability -- 7. Some Combinatorial Logic Examples -- 8. Sequential-State Digital Circuits -- 9. Turing Machines -- 10. Beyond Boole and Shannon -- Epilogue. For the Future: The Anti-Amphibological Machine -- Appendix. Fundamental Electric Circuit Concepts -- Acknowledgments -- Index -- Backmatter