David Huffman

David Huffman was an American computer scientist best known for inventing Huffman coding, a method for efficiently compressing data. This technique assigns shorter codes to more frequently used characters, reducing overall file size without losing information. Huffman's work is foundational in digital communications and data storage, enabling more efficient transfer and saving space. His approach is widely used in formats like JPEG images, MP3 audio, and ZIP files, making digital data handling faster and more economical.