"A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits" is the title of a master's thesis written by computer science pioneer

Claude E. Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institu ...

while attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1937. In his thesis, Shannon, a dual degree graduate of the University of Michigan, proved that

Boolean algebra In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denoted 1 and 0, whereas ...

could be used to simplify the arrangement of the

relays A relay Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off A relay is an electrically operated swit ...

that were the building blocks of the electromechanical automatic telephone exchanges of the day. Shannon went on to prove that it should also be possible to use arrangements of relays to solve Boolean algebra problems. The utilization of the binary properties of electrical switches to perform logic functions is the basic concept that underlies all electronic digital computer designs. Shannon's thesis became the foundation of practical

digital circuit In theoretical computer science, a circuit is a model of computation in which input values proceed through a sequence of gates, each of which computes a function. Circuits of this kind provide a generalization of Boolean circuits and a mathematical ...

design when it became widely known among the

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

community during and after World War II. At the time, the methods employed to design logic circuits were '' ad hoc'' in nature and lacked the theoretical discipline that Shannon's paper supplied to later projects. Psychologist Howard Gardner described Shannon's thesis as "possibly the most important, and also the most famous, master's thesis of the century". A version of the paper was published in the 1938 issue of the '' Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers'', and in 1940, it earned Shannon the Alfred Noble American Institute of American Engineers Award.

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Full text at MIT
{{DEFAULTSORT:Symbolic Analysis Of Relay And Switching Circuits Computer science papers Information theory Applied mathematics 1937 in science 1937 documents Claude Shannon