| Authorised form of name | Shannon; Claude Elwood (1916 - 2001) |
| Dates | 1916 - 2001 |
| Nationality | American |
| Place of birth | Gaylord, Michigan, USA |
| Date of birth | 30/04/1916 |
| Date of death | 24/02/2001 |
| Activity | Education:
State school, Gaylord; University of Michigan (1936, BSc Electrical Engineering and Mathematics); MIT (1940, Masters)
Career:
Worked at MIT and Bell Telephone Laboratories on telephone systems and established the binary system; developed a digital encryption system, used by Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt; wrote the landmark paper 'A mathematical theory of communication' (published 1948); Visiting Professor, MIT (1956); Donner Professor of Science, MIT (1957-1978); suffered from Alzheimer's Disease
|
| Membership category | Foreign Member |
| Date of election | 20/06/1991 |
| Age at election | 75 |
| Relationships | Grandson of an inventor; distant cousin of Thomas Edison; married (1939) Mary Elizabeth; one son, one daughter |
| Source | Sources:
Obituaries: Guardian (08 March 2001); Times, Daily Telegraph (12 March 2001); Nature vol 410 p 768 (12 April 2001) |
| Code | NA5986 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1991/44 | Shannon, Claude Elwood: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1987 |