Claude Shannon
Shannon supplied the language for reasoning about information, noise, secrecy, and digital circuits. His work is foundational to both the systems security seeks to protect and the cryptography used to protect them.
Claude Elwood Shannon was an American mathematician and engineer. His 1937 MIT master’s thesis showed how Boolean algebra could describe relay and switching circuits, a decisive bridge between symbolic logic and digital circuit design.
Information and secrecy
Shannon’s 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of Communication founded information theory, defining a rigorous way to measure information and reason about noise in communication channels. His 1949 work on secrecy systems put cryptography on an information-theoretic footing.
In memoriam
Shannon died in 2001. His intellectual generosity and unusually broad technical curiosity remain a model for generations of engineers and researchers.
Timeline
- 1916-04-30Born in Gaylord, Michigan.
- 1937Publishes his MIT master’s thesis on symbolic analysis of relay and switching circuits.
- 1948Publishes A Mathematical Theory of Communication.
- 1949Publishes Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems.
- 2001-02-24Dies in Massachusetts.
Claude Shannon
- Type
- Person
- Era
- 1930s-2001
- Born
- 1916
- Died
- 2001
- Known for
- Boolean logic in switching circuits; Information theory; Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems
- Tags
- information-theory, cryptography, digital-logic, academic-research
Created by Joas A Santos · Something wrong or want it removed? Open an issue.