Claude Shannon

Claude Shannon was born in 1916 in Petoskey, Michigan, and grew up in nearby Gaylord, where as a boy he built model planes and a telegraph line to a friend's house. He studied electrical engineering and mathematics at the University of Michigan and went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His master's thesis (1937) showed that the true-or-false logic of George Boole could be used to design electrical switching circuits, an idea basic to digital computers. During the Second World War he worked at Bell Labs on cryptography and on systems for aiming anti-aircraft guns. In 1948 he published 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication', which showed how to measure information in bits and how much information can be sent reliably over a noisy channel; it founded the field of information theory. Shannon was also known for his playful inventions, including a mechanical mouse that could learn its way through a maze, juggling machines and a motorized unicycle. He later taught at MIT and died in Massachusetts in 2001.

Claude Shannon is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: His family was active in their Methodist church during his youth; his adult beliefs are not well documented. Source: Wikipedia