Roberto Mario "Robert" Fano (11 November 1917 – 13 July 2016) was an Italian-American computer scientist and professor of electrical engineering and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. He became a student and working lab partner to

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 Inst ...

, whom he admired zealously and assisted in the early years of Information Theory.

Early life and education

Fano was born in Turin, Italy in 1917 to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family and grew up in Turin. Fano's father was the mathematician

Gino Fano Gino Fano (5 January 18718 November 1952) was an Italian mathematician, best known as the founder of finite geometry. He was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Mantua, in Italy and died in Verona, also in Italy. Fano made various contributions ...

, his older brother was the physicist

Ugo Fano Ugo Fano (July 28, 1912 – February 13, 2001) was an Italian American physicist, notable for contributions to theoretical physics. Biography Ugo Fano was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Turin, Italy. His father was Gino Fano, a professo ...

, and

Giulio Racah Giulio (Yoel) Racah ( he, ג'וליו (יואל) רקח; February 9, 1909 – August 28, 1965) was an Italian–Israeli physicist and mathematician. He was Acting President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1961 to 1962. The crater ...

was a cousin. Fano studied engineering as an

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

at the School of Engineering of Torino (Politecnico di Torino) until 1939, when he emigrated to the United States as a result of anti-Jewish legislation passed under Benito Mussolini. He received his S.B. in electrical engineering from MIT in 1941, and upon graduation joined the staff of the

MIT Radiation Laboratory The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 31 ...

. After World War II, Fano continued on to complete his

Sc.D. Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

in electrical engineering from MIT in 1947. His thesis, titled "Theoretical Limitations on the Broadband Matching of Arbitrary Impedances", was supervised by Ernst Guillemin.

Career

Fano's career spans three areas, microwave systems, information theory, and computer science. Fano joined the MIT faculty in 1947 to what was then called the Department of Electrical Engineering. Between 1950 and 1953, he led the Radar Techniques Group at

Lincoln Laboratory The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and de ...

. In 1954, Fano was made an

IEEE Fellow As of 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has 5,082 members designated Fellow, each of whom is associated with one of the 41 societies under the IEEE. The Fellow grade of membership is the highest level of membershi ...

for "contributions in the field of information theory and microwave filters". He was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1958, to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

in 1973, and to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978. Fano was known principally for his work on information theory. He developed

Shannon–Fano coding In the field of data compression, Shannon–Fano coding, named after Claude Shannon and Robert Fano, is a name given to two different but related techniques for constructing a prefix code based on a set of symbols and their probabilities (estimat ...

in collaboration with

, and derived the Fano inequality. He also invented the Fano algorithm and postulated the Fano metric. In the early 1960s, Fano was involved in the development of

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence ...

computers. From 1963 until 1968 Fano served as the founding director of MIT's

Project MAC Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

, which evolved to become what is now known as the

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

. He also helped to create MIT's original computer science curriculum. In 1976, Fano received the Claude E. Shannon Award for his work in information theory. In 1977 he was recognized for his contribution to the teaching of electrical engineering with the IEEE James H. Mulligan Jr. Education Medal. Fano retired from active teaching in 1984, and died on 13 July 2016 at the age of 98.

Bibliography

In addition to his work in information theory, Fano also published articles and books about microwave systems, electromagnetism, network theory, and engineering education. His longer publications include: *"The Theory of Microwave Filters" and "The Design of Microwave Filters", chapters 9 and 10 in George L. Ragan, ed., ''Microwave Transmission Circuits'', vol. 9 in the ''Radiation Laboratory Series'' (with A. W. Lawson, 1948). *''Electromagnetic Energy Transmission and Radiation'' (with Lan Jen Chu and Richard B. Adler, 1960). *''Electromagnetic Fields, Energy, and Forces'' (with Chu and Adler, 1960). *

References

External links

Oral history interview with Robert M. Fano
20 April 1989.

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

University of Minnesota. Fano discusses his move to computer science from information theory and his interaction with the

Advanced Research Projects Agency The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

(ARPA). Topics include: computing research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); the work of J.C.R. Licklider at the

Information Processing Techniques Office The Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), originally "Command and Control Research",Lyon, Matthew; Hafner, Katie (1999-08-19). ''Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet'' (p. 39). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. was par ...

of ARPA; time-sharing and computer networking research; Project MAC; computer science education; CTSS development;

System Development Corporation System Development Corporation (SDC) was a computer software company based in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1955, it is considered the first company of its kind. History SDC began as the systems engineering group for the SAGE air-defens ...

(SDC); the development of ARPANET; and a comparison of ARPA, National Science Foundation, and Office of Naval Research computer science funding. * from 1964, demonstrating the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS). * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fano, Robert 1917 births 2016 deaths Italian computer scientists American information theorists Italian information theorists Jewish American scientists Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American people of Italian-Jewish descent Italian refugees 20th-century Italian Jews Engineers from Turin 20th-century American engineers MIT School of Engineering alumni MIT School of Engineering faculty Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences MIT Lincoln Laboratory people Microwave engineers American telecommunications engineers Italian emigrants to the United States