Question - 629

Identify the man responsible for the artifacts on the top row. The two visuals at the bottom are more oblique clues that the same man was responsible for.

Answer: Claude "The GOD" Shannon. I maybe biased but this man deserves to be known in the same league of scientists as Einstein and Feynman for his contributions. His master's thesis paved the way for digital computers by proving the sufficiency of Boolean logic. He single-handedly created information theory, the theoretical framework of our generation's information revolution. He also was the first to initiate a theoretical study of cryptography. His PhD thesis on an algebra for biology is a little known gem. As if all this isn't awesome enough, he was an expert at juggling, machine learning, uni-cycling and card counting.

The pictures show some of his less famous inventions: He built a mouse called Theseus that could figure out a way out of a maze. He built a machine that could juggle 3 balls at a time (he also proved a theorem about juggling) and he built the "Ultimate machine" upon a suggestion from Marvin Minsky. He wrote the first paper on how one might program a computer to play chess and developed many card counting tricks that he personally used to great effect in Las Vegas.

Saket, Siddarth Pai, Iam, Divya Shankar, anon and Divya got it. Well done.