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

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

and

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

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. 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, computer scientist, cryptographer and inventor known as the "father of information theory" and the man who laid the foundations of th ...

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

information theory Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...

Early life and education

Fano was born in Turin, Italy in 1917 to a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

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

Gino Fano Gino Fano (5 January 18718 November 1952) was an Italians, 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 contr ...

, 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 (; 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 Racah on the Moon is named after hi ...

was a cousin. Fano studied engineering as an

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

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 Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

. 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 3 ...

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

Sc.D. A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...

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

Ernst Guillemin Ernst Adolph Guillemin (May 8, 1898 – April 1, 1970) was an American electrical engineer and computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who spent his career extending the art and science of linear network analysis and synth ...

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 dev ...

. In 1954, Fano was made an

IEEE Fellow , the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and ot ...

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 (The Academy) 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, and other ...

in 1958, to the

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

in 1973, and to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 1978. Fano was known principally for his work on

. He developed

Shannon–Fano coding In the field of data compression, Shannon–Fano coding, named after Claude Shannon and Robert Fano, is one of two related techniques for constructing a prefix code based on a set of symbols and their probabilities (estimated or measured). * Shann ...

in collaboration with

, and derived the Fano inequality. He also invented the

Fano algorithm Fano () is a city and ''comune'' of the province of Pesaro and Urbino in the Marche region of Italy. It is a beach resort southeast of Pesaro, located where the ''Via Flaminia'' reaches the Adriatic Sea. It is the third city in the region by p ...

and postulated the Fano metric. In the early 1960s, Fano was involved in the development of

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the Concurrency (computer science), concurrent sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users by giving each Process (computing), task or User (computing), user a small slice of CPU time, processing time. ...

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 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in ...

, 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 The Claude E. Shannon Award of the IEEE Information Theory Society was created to honor consistent and profound contributions to the field of information theory. Each Shannon Award winner is expected to present a Shannon Lecture at the following ...

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 Lan Jen Chu (August 24, 1913 – July 25, 1973) was a Chinese-born American electrical engineer and a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chu is noted for his work on the fundamental limitations for ...

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 Adva ...

(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. Initially created as a division of the RAND Corporation in December 1955 (under the name System Development Division) and established as an ind ...

(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 The Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) was the first general purpose time-sharing operating system. Compatible Time Sharing referred to time sharing which was compatible with batch processing; it could offer both time sharing and batch proce ...

(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 Fellows 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