Agner Krarup Erlang

Agner Krarup Erlang was a very smart man who lived a long time ago. He was really good at math and making calculations. He figured out a way to help people who were trying to talk on the telephone with each other.

You know how when you call someone on the phone, sometimes it's really busy and you have to wait a long time before you can talk to them? That's called "traffic" on the telephone lines. Erlang wanted to figure out how many phone lines were needed so that people wouldn't have to wait too long on the phone.

So, he did lots of really hard math and came up with something called the "Erlang formula." This formula helps people figure out how many phone lines they need based on how many calls they think they'll have at the same time.

Thanks to Erlang's formula, people could talk to each other on the phone more easily and without waiting so long. That's what made him really famous and important.