"Certain Topics in Telegraph Transmission Theory", Bell Telephone Laboratories

Harry Nyquist, "Certain Topics in Telegraph Transmission Theory", Bell Telephone Laboratories Reprint B-331, American Institute of Electrical Engineers, August 1928. 9 x 6 , 79pp. Original wrappers. There is a very light more than half-faded rubber stamp on the front cover, plus a small library number written ink at top left and again very small at the base of the spine. There is also a very slight indentation in a narrow stretch of text between pp 64 and 79. Also: this is three-hole punched, which is not unusual for this publication and at this point I do believe I can say that this was done at the printer and not by the owner. VG copy.__+__ In this "classic paper" Nyquist "the founding father of digital communications" (Lisa Maliniak, Electronic design, Oct 2005)--who holds an important place in the history of electrical engineering as a pioneer of the mathematical theory of communication -- gives a "mathematical" in addition to an "engineering" point of view of the subject matter.--(N.C. Beaulieu, Introduction to "Certain topics in telegraph transmission theory , Proceedings of the IEEE, vol 90 #2.) __+__ "The Nyquist Shannon sampling theorem is a theorem in the field of digital signal processing which serves as a fundamental bridge between continuous-time signals and discrete-time signals. It establishes a sufficient condition for a sample rate that permits a discrete sequence of samples to capture all the information from a continuous-time signal of finite bandwidth." --Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem, Wikipedia. [It was proved by Claude E. Shannon  (January 1949) and published in the paper "Communication in the presence of noise", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers. 37 (1): 10 21. Also, Shannon salutes Nyquist for his essential work in the very first paragraph of his great paper on the mathematical theory of communication (BSTJ 1948) noting "the basis for [this] theory is contained in the important papers of Nyquist and Hartley on this subject". __+__ It is in the section Analysis of D-c. Wave and Appendix I that the famous "Nyquist rate" is established and Nyquist's sampling result is found. (Beaulieu) (There are over 3500 papers addressing some aspect of the Nyquist rate in the IEEE alone.) __+__ Also in Section III and appendix I is the beginning of the Nyquist First, Second, and Third Criterion for distortionless digital transmission. ".we find in the paper an early statement that digital communication systems will clock signaling intervals and the concept that information will be conveyed by altering some property or condition of the signal in each signaling interval. Further, it is specified that there is a finite number of conditions and that in the case of the simple telegraph, the total number of conditions is two, open and close. This is in sharp distinction to the case of telephony where there are neither simple numerical relations between the various time intervals, nor a finite number of possible current values.The Preliminary Discussion concludes prophetically, asserting that In the illustrations given, the sent waves were voltage waves. This is not necessarily the case in order for the discussion to apply. The sent wave may be a current wave, or it need not even be electrical. By providing suitable coupling the sent wave may be in the form of variations of a light beam. Interestingly, the word variations perhaps suggests that Dr. Nyquist was thinking of more than a simple on-off light beam." __+__ Among the honors awarded Nyquist are the EE Hall of Fame (IEEE), IRE Medal of Honor, and many others.…