Paul Baran, whose work with packaging data in the 1960s has been credited with playing a key role in the later development of the Internet, has died.
Baran’s son David tells the Associated Press on Sunday night that his father died at his home in Palo Alto, California of complications from lung cancer on Saturday. He was 84.
Baran is best known for the idea of “packet-switching,” in which data is bundled into small packages and sent through a network. Baran outlined the concept while working for the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica in 1963 and 1964.
Numerous reports on the subject say the idea became a key concept the Department of Defense used in creating the Arpanet, the precursor to the Internet.
