Claude Shannon

Claude Elwood Shannon (1916–2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer who is widely recognized as the founder of information theory. He is best known for his 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication," which established the fundamental framework for digital communication and information theory, and for applying Boolean algebra to digital circuit design in his 1937 master's thesis. He spent much of his career at Bell Laboratories and later became a professor at MIT from 1956 to 1978. His work laid the theoretical foundations for the Information Age, and his papers are noted for their clarity and lucidity.