The Information
A History, a Theory, a Flood
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Word Count
131,500 words, Guess
Page Count
526 pages
Identifiers
- Internet Archiveinformationhisto00glei_624
- Internet Archiveinformationhisto00glei
- Internet Archiveinformationhisto00glei_933
- Internet Archiveinformationhisto0000glei
- ISBN-100375423729
and 4 more
- ISBN-139780375423727
- Library of Congress Control Number2010023221
- OCLC Control Number607975727
- Open LibraryOL24538398M
Classifications
- DDC020.9
- LCCZ665 .G547 2011
Description
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood begins with the tale of colonial European explorers and their fascination with African talking drums and their observed use to send complex and widely understood messages back and forth between villages far apart, and over even longer distances by relay. The book then covers informational implications of technologies from drum signaling to the long distance telephone. Starting with symbolic written language, The Information examines the history of intellectual insights central to the development of information theory, detailing key figures responsible such as Claude Shannon, Charles Babbage (1791-1871), Ada Byron, Samuel Morse, Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and John Archibald Wheeler.
Description
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.
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- The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
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