that olivetti which lies at the heart of so much of the computer era is due to shia and who wrote to a master's thesis when he was barely 20 years old and which he was getting a degree in electrical engineering. it connected the analysis of electrical circuits with the symbolic lowered -- logic from the 19th century and these are two ideas to any normal person seems so distant. electrical circuits most tour electrical engineers were doing things to do with hardware. and resistance. and shannon was thinking in the abstract way where the circuit could be on our off and made a connection that could be the same as true or false and have a logic or its or them. to know anything about computers the equivalence between the circuitry and logic this is where it is invented. the bit is the fundamental unit. >> the transistor, we know all lot quite a notorious figure but we know less about bob shannon. what was the like as a person back then? >> guest: he was something of a loner. he was shy. at that time there was an old industrial building and it is still there downtown new york on the edge o