Claude Shannon invented Information Theory by coming up with a mathematical model for it. If not for him, you wouldn't be reading this blog on your mobile device right now.

This article discusses his original paper and how it led to a life of engineering and information theory advances that still hold up today and are being used practically.

When I started graduate school, my adviser told me that the best work would prune the tree of knowledge, rather than grow it. I didn’t know what to make of this message then; I always thought my job as a researcher was to add my own twigs. But over my career, as I had the opportunity to apply this philosophy in my own work, I began to understand.
— David Tse, author of the article