Information: The New Language of Science - Hardcover

Von Baeyer, Hans Christian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674013875 ISBN 13: 9780674013872

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2004

Synopsis

Confronting us at every turn, flowing from every imaginable source, information defines our era--and yet what we don't know about it could--and does--fill a book. In this indispensable volume, a primer for the information age, Hans Christian von Baeyer presents a clear description of what information is, how concepts of its measurement, meaning, and transmission evolved, and what its ever-expanding presence portends for the future.

Information is poised to replace matter as the primary stuff of the universe, von Baeyer suggests; it will provide a new basic framework for describing and predicting reality in the twenty-first century. Despite its revolutionary premise, von Baeyer's book is written simply in a straightforward fashion, offering a wonderfully accessible introduction to classical and quantum information. Enlivened with anecdotes from the lives of philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists who have contributed significantly to the field, Information conducts readers from questions of subjectivity inherent in classical information to the blurring of distinctions between computers and what they measure or store in our quantum age. A great advance in our efforts to define and describe the nature of information, the book also marks an important step forward in our ability to exploit information--and, ultimately, to transform the nature of our relationship with the physical universe.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Whether TV shows or cell phone and internet traffic, whether encoded in the radio waves that fill the atmosphere or coursing through wires of copper and glass, information, in its electronic form, surrounds us. And equally copious to this is the realm of physical information, that which mediates between reality and our understanding of it. Our senses record and interpret it; our brains manipulate and process it; our genes pass it from one generation to the next; and the need to share it is an attribute common to every member of the animal kingdom.But what actually is information? Can it be analyzed and measured? Why, if information is such an essential ingredient of the world around us, is it not yet part of the vocabulary of physical science? In this exciting, enlightening, and extraordinary book, Hans Christian von Baeyer addresses these and many other questions, revealing how the concept of information can cast light on principles as diverse as thermodynamics in physics and heredity in biology. For, despite its shadowy, paradoxical, and subjective nature, this is a concept of unarguable importance and power, one that could soon become just as central to science as space, time, mass, or energy - if not more so.With a narrative marked out by its clarity and sheer readability, von Baeyer takes us from the roots of the theory through to the coal-face of modern physics and beyond, deftly unpicking the many strands that knit information so tightly into the fabric of the universe. Along the way, he illuminates topics from gaming theory and probability through to black holes, the history of Morse Code, the future of computing and the role of philosophy in contemporary physics - all whileunderlining this emergent and rapidly developing field as the key to a fundamental new scientific language.

About the Author

Hans Christian von Baeyer is Chancellor Professor of Physics at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. In the course of his career he has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, served as Director of the Virginia Associated Research Campus--an interdisciplinary research laboratory which became the nucleus of the Jefferson Lab (the world's premier electron accelerator facility for nuclear physics)--and garnered numerous awards for his scientific writing. His previous books include Taming the Atom, Rainbows, Snowflakes and Quarks, and Warmth Disperses and Time Passes.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0674013875
• ISBN 13: 9780674013872
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272