Claude Shannon was a mathematician and engineer whose genius created the digital age. In his 1948 paper 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication,' he defined the 'bit' as the fundamental unit of information. He showed that all information—text, sound, and images—could be represented using 1s and 0s. Shannon also realized that Boolean algebra could be used to simplify the design of telephone switching circuits, which became the basis for all modern computer logic. His work on data compression and cryptography remains the backbone of the internet, cellular networks, and satellite communication. Shannon's ability to mathematically quantify 'information' is considered one of the most important intellectual achievements of the 20th century.