Word: shannon
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JOSEPH M. SHANNON JR. Notre Dame...
...Shannon has a good time with Theseus and seems much attached to him, but he did not create the mouse and his labyrinth just for fun. They are useful in studying telephone switching systems, which are very like labyrinths. In effect, each telephone call is a mouse that has to find its way to the cheese (the called telephone) in the shortest possible time...
...Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, N. J. lives a mechanical mouse named Theseus, the creature of Dr. Claude Shannon, Bell computer authority. It was named after the Greek mythological hero who went into the Cretan labyrinth and slew the Minotaur. But Theseus Mouse is cleverer than Theseus the Greek, who could not trust his memory but had to unwind a ball of string to guide him out of the labyrinth...
...Shannon sets up the labyrinth in a pattern unfamiliar to Theseus. Then he places his mouse at an arbitrary point on the metal floor. At first Theseus does not behave very intelligently. He blunders around, bumping his copper whiskers against the aluminum walls. When he hits an obstacle, he turns away and tries it again. By such trial & error, Theseus finally gets through the labyrinth and ends the play by touching the "cheese," an electrical terminal that rings a bell...
...Shannon is author of a book on Tennyson which will be published in the fall, by the University Press. Shannon, also an instructor since 1950, is currently at work on a study of Tennyson's literary reputation...