This week, Katie and Paul are blogging from the Heidelberg Laureate Forum – a week-long maths conference where current young researchers in maths and computer science can meet and hear talks by top-level prize-winning researchers. For more information about the HLF, visit the Heidelberg Laureate Forum website.
A wonderful potted history of the theory of communication was capably presented by 2002 Nevanlinna Prize winner Madhu Sudan, who talked us through from the earliest mathematical thinking on the subject through to the present day, and his team’s work. It was also almost a love letter to one of his mathematical heroes, the father of information theory, Claude Shannon.