ABSTRACT

The 1940s and 1950s witnessed an unprecedented wave of scientific theories of information and its measurement, closely tied to the end of World War II and the rush of wartime research findings being declassified and refigured for wider scientific consumption. In 1948 alone at least eight competing accounts of information appeared in prestigious English, British, American, and French journals. The present article examines the genesis of the theories of information of Norbert Wiener and Claude Shannon, their distinct practical and disciplinary origins, their wartime and institutional intersections, and the epistemological divergences, amidst a broader family of conceptual and professional problems embedding research on “information” in the 1940s and 1950s. It concludes with remarks on the wider uptake of these theories. In suggesting these theories embodied two different architectures, I underscore the extent to which scientific theories are not simply abstract concepts detached from history and place but, on the contrary, embody specific values and histories that give shelter to distinct communities and exercises.