The father of the Information Age

How much of our everyday experience has become digital? From the cellular phone to the complex laptop computer, we are surrounded by "bits"—the binary digits that make the accurate generation, transmission, and reception of information possible. The man who conceived this "information theory" died a year ago this month almost without notice except among the academic research community. He was Claude Shannon, a former Bell Telephone Labs researcher and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor.

PAUL SHARMAN