Shannon, Claude (1916 - 2001)

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In 1936, Claude Shannon graduated from University of Michigan with Bachelor degrees in Electrical Engineer and Mathematics. This dual interest was this key to his later work. He then went to M.I.T. and spent time working with the Bush differential analyzer, a mechanical device that solved differential equations. He recognized that the machine was a two-valued system, ideally suited for Boolen algebra. His ideas were refined at Bell Labs and subsequent years at M.I.T. leading to a vacuum tube version called the Bush Rapid Selector. Out of his research came our modern notions of computers, information theory, and communication networks.

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