The American mathematician Claude Elwood Shannon (born 1916) was the first to apply symbolic logic to the design of switching circuits, and his work on the mathematics of communication is central to modern information theory.

Claude Shannon was born on April 30, 1916, in Gaylord, Michigan. After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1936, he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There he made a mathematical discovery of considerable potential in the field of technology, and one which pointed the direction of his subsequent career. While studying the design of switching circuits, he saw how to apply symbolic logic to establish an economy of design. By employing the language of logic in plotting the alternative flow paths of the electric current through a switching series, redundant controls could be discovered and eliminated.

On completion of his doctorate in 1940, Shannon joined Bell Telephone Laboratories. He was interested in the problem of...