Books 2021: The Information
The Information by James Gleick
Information is in a state of deluge right now with the internet in our pockets — people clicking away relentlessly 24x7. James Gleick traces the story of this flood in ‘The Information’.
Communication was prior to information, with human beings trying to send messages to each other over various mediums. The gradual triumph of written mediums over the dominant verbal one led to the birth of dictionary, libraries and documentation of all kinds. The urge to connect and send messages across lands led to the development of codes and subsequently the telegraph and the telephone.
Moving past the cataloguing of words, Shannon started a train of thought on how ‘this information’ can be interpreted with logic. Thus was born ‘The Information Theory’ — an amalgamation of mathematics, physics and computer science.
The introduction of dreamlike concepts came in with quantum physics opening doors to more complexities. How the human brain processes and interprets the information on a day to day basis probably can help crack the information code once and for all.
(PS: this is a personal interpretation of the facts presented by the author)