For an economist with same name, see Paul A. Baran

Paul Baran (born 1926) was one of the developers of packet switched networks with Donald Davies. He was born in Poland, but his family moved to Boston in 1928. He obtained his Masters degree in Engineering from UCLA in 1959 and began working for the RAND corporation in the same year.

The development of a communication network that would withstand a nuclear attack was important to U.S. defence strategy. Baran developed his ideas for packet switched networks as a solution.

Similar ideas were also being independently pursued by Donald Davies from the National Physical Laboratory in the U.K..

Baran also provided a spark of invention to the packet voice technology developed by StrataCom Inc. and the discrete multitone modem technology developed by Telebit. He is also credited with inventing the metal detector used in airports.

External links

• ibilio.org entry (http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/baran.html)