1.3 Building Blocks of Digital Wireless

Perhaps the best definition of a communication system was given by Claude Shannon who stated that (we paraphrase here) the purpose of a communication system is to reproduce at one point a message generated at another.

Shannon invented the mathematical science of information theory, which elegantly shows how nature places fundamental limits on communication. His work underlies all of modern digital communication system design. One could even say that he is to the revolution in communications as James Watt (the inventor of the steam engine) was to the industrial revolution.