MATHEMATICIAN

Claude Shannon

1916 - 2001

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Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, cryptographer and inventor known as the "father of information theory" and the man who laid the foundations of the Information Age. Shannon was the first to describe the use of Boolean algebra—essential to all digital electronic circuits—and helped found artificial intelligence (AI). Roboticist Rodney Brooks declared Shannon the 20th century engineer who contributed the most to 21st century technologies, and mathematician Solomon W. Golomb described his intellectual achievement as "one of the greatest of the twentieth century". At the University of Michigan, Shannon dual degreed, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and another in mathematics, both in 1936. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Claude Shannon is the 101st most popular mathematician (down from 56th in 2019), the 697th most popular biography from United States (down from 316th in 2019) and the 7th most popular American Mathematician.

Claude Shannon is most famous for his work in information theory, which is the study of how information is encoded and transmitted.

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Among MATHEMATICIANS

Among mathematicians, Claude Shannon ranks 101 out of 1,004Before him are Joan Clarke, L. E. J. Brouwer, Abu al-Wafa' Buzjani, Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, Paul Erdős, and John Wallis. After him are Felix Klein, Guillaume de l'Hôpital, Adrien-Marie Legendre, Augustus De Morgan, Anthemius of Tralles, and Émile Picard.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1916, Claude Shannon ranks 22Before him are João Havelange, Olivia de Havilland, Yehudi Menuhin, Jean Dausset, Christian B. Anfinsen, and Camilo José Cela. After him are Frederick Chapman Robbins, Hans Eysenck, Sune Bergström, Maurice Wilkins, Harold Wilson, and Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Among people deceased in 2001, Claude Shannon ranks 18Before him are Jorge Amado, G. E. M. Anscombe, Christiaan Barnard, Sabiha Gökçen, Bill Hewlett, and Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary. After him are Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Iannis Xenakis, Alberto Korda, Gilbert Bécaud, Wilhelm Mohnke, and Fred Hoyle.

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Claude Shannon ranks 697 out of 20,380Before him are Alfred Newman (1900), Scottie Pippen (1965), Montgomery Clift (1920), Robert A. Heinlein (1907), James Coburn (1928), and Frank Sinatra Jr. (1944). After him are David Copperfield (1956), Julie Harris (1925), Robert Downey Sr. (1936), Leonard Nimoy (1931), Robert Burns Woodward (1917), and Paul Flory (1910).

Among MATHEMATICIANS In United States

Among mathematicians born in United States, Claude Shannon ranks 7Before him are John Forbes Nash Jr. (1928), Charles Sanders Peirce (1839), Norbert Wiener (1894), Katherine Johnson (1918), Herbert A. Hauptman (1917), and Jim Simons (1938). After him are Paul Cohen (1934), John Tate (1925), Mary Jackson (1921), Edward Norton Lorenz (1917), Alonzo Church (1903), and Karen Uhlenbeck (1942).