The information : a history, a theory, a flood / James Gleick.

Author
Gleick, James [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
1st ed.
Published/​Created
New York : Pantheon Books, ©2011.
Description
526 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks Z665 .G547 2011 Browse related items Request

    Details

    Subject(s)
    Summary note
    • The author of the books Chaos and Genius, now brings us a chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era's defining quality, the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world. The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long misunderstood talking drums of Africa, he tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy nilly, aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.
    • From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long misunderstood "talking drums" of Africa, James Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He also provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information, including Charles Babbage, Ada Byron, Samuel Morse, Alan Turing, and Claude Shannon.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (p. 429-503) and index.
    Contents
    • Drums that talk
    • Persistence of the word
    • Two wordbooks
    • To throw the powers of thought into wheel-work
    • A nervous system for the Earth
    • New wires, new logic
    • Information theory
    • The informational turn
    • Entropy and its demons
    • Life's own code
    • Into the meme pool
    • The sense of randomness
    • Information is physical
    • After the flood
    • New news every day.
    ISBN
    • 9780375423727 ((hbk.))
    • 0375423729 ((hbk.))
    LCCN
    2010023221
    OCLC
    607975727
    Statement on language in description
    Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...
    Other views
    Staff view

    Supplementary Information