[avinashv]

Claude Shannon 1948, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Commun...

This paper kickstarted the concept of information theory, and was hugely influential on many fields of research. Signal-to-noise ratio, the bit, information entropy, etc. are all theories and concepts presented by Shannon.

[ivansavz]

+1! I find the whole notion of "typical set" to be absolutely amazing.

I would like to share with you a few pages from the intro to my thesis which cover Shannon's channel coding theorem. There are some nice TiKZ illustrations. http://minireference.com/static/excerpts/Shannon_channel_cod... (it's not super detailed, but the definitions of all the moving parts are given)

[sasvari]

> http://minireference.com/static/excerpts/Shannon_channel_cod...

in case somebody is interested in more than the 15 pages provided in the excerpt, here's ivan's complete thesis:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1208.4188v1.pdf

[swairshah]

This is really cool. I'm working in systems research, but I'm fascinated by mathematical research in CS. Did you continue with similar work after your PhD, If I may ask?

[ivansavz]

I've since switched my research focus to machine learning (look up latent Dirichlet allocation, very cool stuff). I find a lot of parallels between the two fields: prob. theory, matrices, uncertainty, ...

I'm still following quantum information theory research, but more as a spectator from the sidelines. However, a couple of weeks ago I had to come back to quantum info. theory to "defend" my academic reputation. Our colleagues from TIFR found a bug in one of our papers (http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3645v3) so my coauthor and I had to fix it. It was kind of cool to see I hadn't "lost my quantum skills" after two years of running a business. I guess, once you go quantum you never go back? :)

[avinashv]

Very cool! Shannon's paper was, to be honest, a little out of my comfort zone when I first read it (this isn't really my field academically), and I got a little lost on the first read of this, but someone below posted your full thesis which I will definitely read when I have the time.

[apricot]

This was the first academic paper I ever read, way back when. For a brief, wonderful time, I thought all academic papers were of a similar caliber, and I was in awe (and not a little bit intimidated).

[avinashv]

> For a brief, wonderful time, I thought all academic papers were of a similar caliber

I had the exact same thought in college when I started reading a handful of well-written papers like this myself. This really set a standard that for 60+ years now academia hasn't always maintained.

[thehoneybadger]

Wow you beat me to it! This paper affected my college major, my career in my twenties, and my current career. Such an important paper, although, I must admit, it is not easy to decipher at first.