Akira Nakashima (中嶋章 or 中島章, also written as ''Nakashima Akira'', ''Nakasima Akira'' or ''Nakajima Akira'', 5 January 1908 – 29 October 1970) was a Japanese

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

of the

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

. He got a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the

Imperial University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

. Nakashima introduced

switching circuit theory Switching circuit theory is the mathematical study of the properties of networks of idealized switches. Such networks may be strictly combinational logic, in which their output state is only a function of the present state of their inputs; or ma ...

in papers from 1934 to 1936, laying the foundations for

digital circuit In theoretical computer science, a circuit is a model of computation in which input values proceed through a sequence of gates, each of which computes a function. Circuits of this kind provide a generalization of Boolean circuits and a mathemati ...

design, in

digital computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These program ...

s and other areas of modern technology. This is considered to be an achievement on a par with

Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts I ...

, who presented a similar theory at the same time.

References

1908 births 1970 deaths 20th-century Japanese engineers NEC people University of Tokyo alumni {{engineer-stub