Agner Krarup Erlang

Agner Krarup Erlang (January 1, 1878 – February 3, 1929) was a Danish mathematician, statistician and engineer, who invented the fields of traffic engineering and queueing theory.

By the time of his relatively early death at the age of 51, Erlang created the field of telephone networks analysis. His early work in scrutinizing the use of local, exchange and trunk telephone line usage in a small community, to understand the theoretical requirements of an efficient network led to the creation of the Erlang formula, which became a foundational element of present day telecommunication network studies.