The groundwork of today's connected world was laid with a 1948 paper by Claude Shannon modeling how data is distorted in transit. The paper introduced, among other things, the concept of the "bit" as a unit.
"Dubbed the Magna Carta of the Information Age, Shannon's paper used mathematics to quantify what had been a vague concept - information - and demonstrated that the dream of rapid, clear communications was possible," explained Dunbar student and filmmaker Jack Gill in his award-winning documentary A Theory, A Paper, A Turning Point - Claude Shannon's 1948 "Mathematical Theory of Communication".
Gill, a sophomore, placed first in the Next Generation Angels Awards, recognizing student documentaries modeled off the work of Ken Burns. His documentary fits within that frame, expressing a complex topic through imagery borrowed from scans of original documents, vintage television PSAs, and historic photographs.
"If you find like a good topic that you're interested in, stuff will come naturally," said Gill. "There's natural stories."
He said the thread which led him to Claude Shannon began as an interest in exploring the development of AI tools like ChatGPT.
"I went back to the other famous AIs. I went back to Watson, the Jeopardy Robot, Deep Blue, the chess robot," said Gill. "Claude Shannon had worked on some chess codes in the 1950s, so an article on Deep Blue led me back to Claude Shannon. It said his most prominent contribution was to information theory."
From there, Gill repackaged Shannon's groundbreaking mathematical theory in an understandable, conversational way.
"Who cares what the formula stands for? Who cares what the letters are? What's the concept behind it that actually matters? What's the concept that ties into the real world?"
As a first place winner selected from over 373 submissions, Gill was invited to a mentorship session with Ken Burns, and his film was placed in a Library of Congress collection.