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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
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Details
Subject(s)
Information science
—
History
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Information society
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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.
Show 12 more Contents items
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.
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The information [electronic resource] : a history, a theory, a flood / James Gleick.
id
9973423263506421