0️⃣1️⃣ Claude Shannon I’m finishing a book called A Mind at Play: How… — Good dev knows

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0️⃣1️⃣ Claude Shannon

I’m finishing a book called A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age. Do you know who Claude Shannon is? Probably not. Yet the Claude LLM is named after him. Moreover, many people believe his name and discoveries should be mentioned alongside Einstein and Turing. So now you know — he was quite an important person, especially for both me and you!

Before Shannon, people were communicating, but they couldn’t articulate what “information” actually is. Why? Because they didn’t know how to measure it. Shannon thought this through: he proved that there is a smallest possible piece of information and gave it a name — the bit. Thanks to him, we can measure information, quantify how much can be sent through a given channel, reduce noise, and much more. All thanks to Claude Shannon.

But today, I want to share something practical from the book: ✨ six strategies Claude Shannon suggested for solving any problem.

1️⃣ Start with simplifying. Almost any problem has extra details you don’t need at the start. Focus on the core issue.

2️⃣ Encircle your problem with existing answers to similar questions. Then ask yourself: how can these answers help solve your current problem?

3️⃣ If you still can’t solve it — restate the question. How else can it be described? Try changing the viewpoint.

4️⃣ Break the problem into smaller pieces. Solve them one by one. It’s easier than tackling the whole thing at once.

5️⃣ Problems that can’t be analyzed can still be imagined. If you can’t prove your conclusion logically, assume it’s already true and see what follows. Do contradictions appear?

6️⃣ When you have an answer, stretch it. Can it be generalized further? Can its application be broader?

It’s clear you don’t need to be a scientist to use these strategies. They work just as well for IT problems.

And if you want to learn more about Claude Shannon, you don’t even need to read the book. There’s an excellent documentary on YouTube.