James
Gleick, noted science writer, has the capacity to take the long view
of the dawn of the Universe at the same time he focuses down to the
sub-microscopic levels of molecular biology. He takes the reader to
the edges of the universe, just seconds after the Big Bang and to the
deepest part of a a cell, the chromosome, and finds they're the same
place. His large and oh-so-readable book The
Information, treats
information at the most abstract, content free levels while also
examining the world Encyclopedia, the efforts to create a compendium
of all the world's knowledge, while differentiating between knowledge
and information. In doing this, he helps each reader examine issues
like “what makes us human,” and “how we find meaning.” While
all this might sound daunting, Gleick is such a fine writer, that the
impossible idea become plausible, and the difficult becomes
approachable. While, as a reader and a thinker, I must own my
lifelong difficulties with math and science, Gleick makes me think
more deeply without wearing out his welcome. Other writers present
formulas and mathematical ideas in the form of mathematical writing,
and my eyes glaze over. Gleick manages always to make me think I'm,
at least, on the edge of understanding, and then draws parallels that
turn the wonder into insight.
Introducing the
inventor of the transistor, Claude Shannon (1916 – 2001), known as
the father of information theory, as the central character in his
story, Gleick then takes the reader on a journey that leads back to
African drum languages, to the beginning of language and, perforce,
thought. Gleick makes it clear that without language there is no
thought nor thought without language. It seems to be completely true
that “in the beginning was the word,” if not in a Biblical sense,
then in a real life statement of the beginnings of understanding. In
order to make Shannon's contributions clear and to point in
directions still not fully realized, but opened by Shannon's work,
Gleick takes us back to the beginnings of time, before conscious
thought and the development of language, let alone writing.
In every case, as
nearly as I can tell, thought, expression, and the invention of
technology link together such that great leaps can only happen when
they three coincide. For example, Gleick tells the story of early
nineteenth century British mathematician and inventor Charles
Babbage, who invented, at least in his head, a huge, mechanical
calculating machine which was never built because the technology
required reached beyond what could be developed and built at the
time. Nevertheless, Babbage is considered to be the “father of the
computer,” although such a child always has many fathers.
Similarly,
humankind have been in the business of seeking to accumulate
information about their own activities and environment almost since
the first cave painting. Early dictionaries, mere alphabetical lists
of words (Did you know that the very word alphabet is
alphabetical – Alpha Beta, the first two letters?) led to efforts
to write meanings of the words and then derivations. Similarly, The
Encyclopedia Brittanica represents
a massive effort over nearly a century's time to accumulate all (or
at least a whole lot) the information. Now Wikipedia
and Google, almost
unimagineably large and comprehensive attempt to continue the effort.
But such projects would never have been as successful as they are
were it not for the massive increase in speed and storage capacity of
the Internet with the continued decline of the cost of computing and
memory. Your smart phone is ever so much more powerful and has
significantly more memory than the early manned rockets contained as
the penetrated into space.
Ahhh,
space! Another important strand of The Information
is the work of physicists, mathematicians, and, more recently
biologists in probing the edges of space and the discoveries in both
theory and observation of the DNA strands that hold our entire
evolutionary history within their substance, which is repeated in
every cell of our bodies. All this might seem ponderous in a less
graceful, clear, and, yes, witty writer. Gleick bases much of his
discussion on the interaction between seminal people and the
development of relevant technology. He writes about both with insight
while not making the ideas so difficult to grasp that he turns off
non-technical good readers. As he weaves his way through history and
the science that developed, he never moves far from the search for
meaning within the contentless search for relevant theory to support
it. I leave it to individual readers to assess whether this book
contributes to their understanding of that beyond all understanding.
James Gleick
James Gleick was born in New York and
began his career in journalism, working as an editor and reporter for
the New York Times. He covered science and technology there,
chronicling the rise of the Internet as the Fast Forward columnist,
and in 1993 founded an Internet start-up company called The Pipeline.
His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.
He has been nominated for three Pulitzer Prizes and two National Book
Awards. His next book is Time
Travel: A History, for which
I asked the published to send me a pre-publication review copy, and
was denied. I'll read it when I can afford it.
The
Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick
(Pantheon Books, 2011, 527 pages, Various Prices) explores the ideas
that lead to and encompass what is now called information theory. In
order to do that, Gleick has had to look to the beginning of history
and before and to the ends of the Universe and beyond. Chances are
there are smaller particles and further empty places, and chances
are, too, that Gleick will tell us about them, and each of us will
understand beyond the limits we thought possible. Who could ask for
more?
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