At first the autograph seekers came in a trickle, and then they clogged hallways in long lines. The thin, white-haired man had spent hours wandering in and out of meetings at the International Information Theory Symposium in Brighton, England, before the rumors of his identity began to proliferate. With unique access to Shannon’s family and friends, A Mind at Play brings this singular innovator and always playful genius to life. He also wrote the seminal text of the digital revolution, which has been called “the Magna Carta of the Information Age.” In this elegantly written, exhaustively researched biography, Soni and Goodman reveal Claude Shannon’s full story for the first time. He constructed the first wearable computer, outfoxed Vegas casinos, and built juggling robots. Claude Shannon was a groundbreaking polymath, a brilliant tinkerer, and a digital pioneer. In their second collaboration, biographers Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman present the story of Claude Shannon-one of the foremost intellects of the twentieth century and the architect of the Information Age, whose insights stand behind every computer built, email sent, video streamed, and webpage loaded. “A charming account of one of the twentieth century’s most distinguished scientists…Readers will enjoy this portrait of a modern-day Da Vinci.” - Fortune

'Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman make a convincing case for their subtitle while reminding us that Shannon never made this claim himself.' - The Wall Street Journal They summon the right level of awe while stopping short of hyperbole.' - Financial Times

'Soni and Goodman are at their best when they invoke the wonder an idea can instill. 'We owe Claude Shannon a lot, and Soni & Goodman’s book takes a big first step in paying that debt.' - San Francisco Review of Books Winner of the Neumann Prize for the History of Mathematics

A Mind at Play by Jimmy Soni