On Shannon and "Shannon's Formula"

It is interesting to note that as practical limitations were removed, several fundamental or principal limitations were established. For instance, Carnot showed that there was a fundamental limit to how much energy could be extracted from a heat engine. Later this result was generalized to the second law of thermodynamics. As a result of Einstein’s special relativity theory, the existence of an upper velocity limit was found. Other examples include Kelvin’s absolute zero, Heissenberg’s uncertainty principle and Godel’s incompleteness theorem in mathematics. Shannon’s Channel coding theorem, which was published in 1948, seems to be the last one of such fundamental limits, and one may wonder why all of them were discovered during this limited time-span. One reason may have to do with maturity. When a field is young, researchers are eager to find out what can be done – not to identify borders they cannot pass. Since telecommunications is one of the youngest of the applied sciences, it is natural that the more fundamental laws were established at a late stage.