Engineering & invention · Science
Harry Nyquist
Communication-systems theorist
Who they are
Harry Nyquist studied the limits and behavior of telegraph transmission. His 1928 paper connected signaling speed, frequency range and the conditions for avoiding distortion, using a system’s steady-state characteristics. Shannon later acknowledged Nyquist’s work as a predecessor to his own mathematical theory of communication.
He provides the engineering foundation behind the timeline’s information-theory milestone.
Selected contributions
Selected works
Academic paper · 1928
Certain Topics in Telegraph Transmission Theory
Nyquist analyzes telegraph transmission through the frequency behavior of a communication system. His synopsis connects signaling speed, bandwidth and distortion, explaining the engineering problem of sending information through a limited frequency range.
Original AIEE paper 1928; linked 2002 Proceedings of the IEEE classic-paper reprint.
Reading scope & citation
Fresh inspection: First two reprint pages read: byline, original/reprint dates, synopsis and scope. The mathematical derivations and all engineering cases were not audited.
In the timeline
Biography sources
- A Mathematical Theory of Communication ↗Bell System Technical Journal 27; corrected reprint hosted by MIT
- Certain Topics in Telegraph Transmission Theory ↗Transactions of the AIEE; 2002 Proceedings of the IEEE reprint hosted by Washington University