entropy
Interred: Claude Elwood Shannon 1916 - 2001
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as "the father of information theory".
CEMETERY RECORD
Claude E. Shannon
4/30/1916 - 2/24/2001
Interred 4/30/2001
Location: BEGONIA PATH, Lot 10722
Artist Statement
About a year ago, I got an email from an old business colleague. We hadn’t worked together in over twenty five years. He’d read about earth.sky, and mentioned visiting his friend’s father’s grave at Mount Auburn from time to time, adding that his friend’s father was an eminent mathematician and cryptographer who is relatively unknown to the general public.
Having seen the recent film about Alan Turing, the great British WWII cryptographer, my interest was piqued.
While considering many different ways of approaching this project, I happened to meet Peter Falb, a member of the Friends of Mount Auburn and a distinguished mathematician. At the mention of Shannon’s name, Peter’s eyes lit up and he began speaking with great passion about the importance of Shannon’s work to our digital information age. Peter agreed to do a voice interview for this brief piece about Shannon’s contributions to humankind.
