Akira Nakashima (中嶋 章[1] or 中島 章,[1] also written as Nakashima Akira,[1]Nakasima Akira[1] or Nakajima Akira,[1] 5 January 1908 – 29 October 1970) was a Japanese electrical engineer of the NEC.
Akira Nakashima independenly introduced switching circuit theory in papers from 1934 to 1936,[2][3][4][1] concurrent with Victor Shestakov and Claude Shannon, laying the foundations for digital circuit design, in digital computers and other areas of modern technology.[1] However, Shannon's ideas were markedly different in approach and theoretical framework compared to the work of Nakashima, whose work was still based on the existent circuit theory of the time and took a grounded approach, whereas Shannon based his work on mathematics and was far more abstract, thereby breaking new ground and setting up an approach that now dominates modern electrical engineering.[5]
