American mathematician (1916–2001) Claude Elwood Shannon was an American polymath who was a mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, cryptographer, and inventor known as the "father of information theory", and the man who laid the foundations of the Information Age. 1,449,871 views on April 30, 2016 — Wikipedia's most-read article that day. Also most read: Captain America: Civil War, Great Pyramid of Giza, 2016 NFL draft, Iraq. Wiki link