Claude Shannon

Geb.: 30 April 1916 in Gaylord, Michigan, USA

Claude Shannon was a graduate of Michigan and went to MIT where he wrote a thesis on the use of Boole's algebra to analyse and optimise relay switching circuits. He joined Bell Telephones in 1941 as a research mathematician and remained there until 1972.

He published A Mathematical Theory of Communication in in the Bell System Technical Journal (1948). His work founded the subject of information theory and he proposed a linear schematic model of a communications system. He gave a method of analysing a sequence of error terms in a signal to find their inherent variety, matching them to the designed variety of the control system.

In 1952 he devised an experiment illustrating the capabilities of telephone relays.

Shannon was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1966.

References:

N J A Sloane (ed.), Claude Elwood Shannon : collected papers (New York, 1993).

Mathematician and pioneer of communication theory, born in Gaylord, MI. He studied at Michigan and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 1938 published a seminal paper on the application of symbolic logic to relay circuits, which helped transform circuit design from an art into a science. He worked at Bell Telephone Labs (1941-72) in the area of information theory, and wrote The Mathematical Theory of Communication (1949) with Warren Weaver.

See also Gregory Bateson's work in this context.