Information: The New Language of ScienceHarvard University Press, 2004 - 258 pàgines 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. |
Continguts
Information in our lives | 3 |
Why information will transform physics | 11 |
The roots of the concept | 18 |
The scientific measure of information | 28 |
Beyond concrete reality | 35 |
Genetic information | 42 |
Reductionism and emergence | 54 |
Science is about information | 61 |
The information speed limit | 129 |
The computer in the service of physics | 136 |
Biology meets information technology | 145 |
The cost of forgetting | 153 |
Quantum weirdness brought | 163 |
The wonder of superposition | 175 |
Information in the quantum age | 183 |
Putting qubits to work | 193 |
Classical Information | 66 |
How probability measures information | 69 |
The ubiquitous logarithm | 81 |
The meaning of entropy | 90 |
The flip side of information | 99 |
From Morse to Shannon | 111 |
Nuisance and necessity | 122 |
Altres edicions - Mostra-ho tot
Information: The New Language of Science Hans Christian Von Baeyer Previsualització no disponible - 2003 |
Information: The New Language of Science Hans Christian Von Baeyer Previsualització no disponible - 2004 |
Information: The New Language of Science Hans Christian Von Baeyer Previsualització no disponible - 2004 |