クロード・シャノンの迷路探索機 : ベル研究所における評価の変遷

Abstract

In the early 1950s Claude Shannon made two "Maze Solving Machines" from relays and switches at Bell Labs. They were able to automatically solve mazes of 5 x 5 squares by trial-and-error strategy and to remember the solution. One of them, named "Theseus", became quite famous through stories in magazines such as Life and Time for its running wooden mouse on the maze. These machines were originally regarded as experiments for telephone switching equipment, especially for memory units of the switching system. But this interpretation gradually changed and the experiments came to be seen as suggesting a relationship between switching systems and logic. This change reflected the status of switching theory and digital computers among the researchers at Bell Labs. Specifically, a shift in Bell Lab's policy that only works that were related to telephony and communication technology were basically allowed in the laboratories occurred, most noticeably in the 1950s and 1960s, due to an antitrust lawsuit which started in 1949.