Gleick has a gift for connecting ideas and concepts and examining relationships between the work and ideas of scientists like Claude Shannon and Vannevar Bush or Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace. While readers may be familiar with many of the scientists and thinkers profiled in The Information, it's unusual to see a popular book that unites the work of computer scientists, mathematicians, lexicographers, and geneticists under the broader umbrella of information theory. Cory Doctorow described the book as "vibrat with excitement." In this pop-science examination of the history of information theory, Gleick looks at the development of information theories and technologies, writing that "every new medium transforms the nature of human thought.history is the story of information becoming aware of itself." He successfully engages the reader in topics ranging from lexicography to cryptoanalysis. "Organisms organize.We sort the mail, build sandcastles, solve jigsaw puzzles, separate wheat from chaff, rearrange chess pieces, collect stamps, alphabetize books.We propagate structure.we are reducing entropy, piece by piece. James Gleick, New York: Vintage Books, 2011. The Information: A history, a theory, a flood.
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