Claude Shannon nasceu o 30 de abril de 1916 em Michigan, EUA. Foi casado com Mary Elizabeth Moore e Norma Barzman. Morreu o 24 de fevereiro de 2001 em Massachusetts, EUA.
A Mind at Play, a biography of Shannon written by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman, was published in 2017. They described Shannon as "the most important genius you've never heard of, a man whose intellect was on par with Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton".
