High Definition and 24P Cinematography

26

Digital imaging

26.1 The history of digits

It is widely thought that one Claude Elwood Shannon, who died at the age of 84 in 2001, single-handedly laid the foundation for what became known as information theory, that branch of mathematics concerning the transmission of data in a digital form.

In what has been called the most important Masters Thesis of the twentieth century, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, published in 1938, he first put forward the notion that it was possible to solve problems simply by manipulating two symbols – one and zero – in an automated electrical circuit.

Later, in his work A Mathematical Theory of Communication, he first coined the term ‘bit’ as the fundamental unit of information which encapsulates ...