The most important master's thesis of all time
Claude Shannon's article "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" was published in Bell System Technical Journal in 1948 and gave rise to the field of information theory.
But his Marster's thesis (MIT) of 1937 untitled "A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits" is considered as the most important master's thesis of all time. It helped to change digital circuit design from an art to a science. It has also been called the "birth certificate of the digital revolution", and it won the 1939 Alfred Noble Prize.
In this thesis, Shannon proved that Boolean algebra could be used to simplify the arrangement of the relays that were the building blocks of the electromechanical automatic telephone exchanges of the day. He went on to prove that it should also be possible to use arrangements of relays to solve Boolean algebra problems.