From WWII Codes to Hastings Classrooms: The Past, Present, and Future of Information Theory

From cracking enemy codes in WWII to guiding Hastings students who build robots after class, information theory has traveled an extraordinary arc. This feature unpacks Claude Shannon’s revolutionary “bit,” demystifies the math behind Wi-Fi and AI, tours the quantum-and-neural frontiers, and shows why these ideas matter right here on the Mississippi. Spoiler: the next tech breakthrough could start in a Hastings classroom.