In 1973, for instance, Shannon was invited to give the first Claude Shannon lecture in Ashkelon, Israel, for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Information Theory Society. “I have never seen such stage fright,” the mathematician Elwyn Berlekamp recalled. “It never would have occurred to me that anyone in front of friends could be so scared.” Shannon required extensive nerve calming in the wings and would only take the stage accompanied by a friend. Another attendee remembered, “He just felt that people were going to expect so much of him in this talk, and he was afraid that
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