Claude Shannon
30 April 1916 – 24 February 2001
Claude Elwood Shannon was an American mathematician and electrical engineer known as the father of information theory. His 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of Communication established the fundamental limits of data compression and transmission. He also showed how Boolean algebra could be used to design digital circuits, laying groundwork for modern computing.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Claude Shannon.
- Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002) Overlapped 85 years →
- Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Overlapped 85 years →
- Bill Hewlett (1913–2001) Overlapped 85 years →
- Chung Ju-yung (1915–2001) Overlapped 85 years →
- Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) Overlapped 85 years →
- Dorothy Vaughan (1910–2008) Overlapped 85 years →
Life events
Claude Elwood Shannon was born in Petoskey, Michigan, and raised in Gaylord.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAt MIT he wrote a master's thesis showing that Boolean algebra could be used to design and analyze electrical switching circuits.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe earned his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a dissertation applying mathematics to genetics.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe joined Bell Labs, where he worked on cryptography and communication during and after the Second World War.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe published the foundational paper of information theory, introducing the bit and the concept of channel capacity.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe demonstrated Theseus, an electromechanical mouse that could learn to navigate a maze, an early example of machine learning.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, becoming a permanent member in the following years.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe received the U.S. National Medal of Science for his contributions to information theory.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe died in 2001 after living with Alzheimer's disease.
Source: en.wikipedia.org