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Information: The New Language of Science
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Review
Hans Christian von Bayer is well known for explaining the complexities of science to the rest of us, and in this book he lives up to his reputation by taking on one of the most difficult concepts around--information. Starting with his characterization of information as a gentle rain that falls on all of our lives, he leads us through a universe in which information is woven like threads in a cloth. Masterful! (James Trefil, Clarence J Robinson Professor of Physics at George Mason University and co-author of The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy)In Information, physicist Hans Christian von Baeyer sets out to explain why...information is the irreducible seed from which every particle, every force and even the fabric of space-time grows. This is deep stuff, but von Baeyer romps through a huge range of subjects, including thermodynamics, statistics, information theory and quantum mechanics with ease....You will never think of information the same way again. (New Scientist 2003-11-01)Von Baeyer has provided an accessible and engaging overview of the emerging role of information as a fundamental building block in science. (Michael Nielsen Nature 2004-01-01)Delving into the history of science from ancient Greek theories of the atom to the frontiers of astrophysics, [Von Baeyer] shows how the concept of information illuminates a huge variety of phenomena, from black holes to the gamesmanship strategies of Let's Make a Deal...Von Baeyer manages to steer clear of equations without resorting to the hand-waving metaphors that too many science popularizers lapse into when trying to convey difficult ideas. The result is a stylish introduction to one of the most fascinating themes of modern science. (Publishers Weekly 2004-03-01)
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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.
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Product details
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press; First Thus edition (November 30, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674018575
ISBN-13: 978-0674018570
Product Dimensions:
5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.7 out of 5 stars
7 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#934,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This is a good book but not a great book. The author does a decent job of laying out all the basic concepts of modern thinking about information: classical concepts of entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Claude Shannon's revolutionary reformulation of the problem, and modern concepts of qubits. The writing is brightened by some brilliant metaphors and sparkling descriptions. However, it fell short of my expectations in several areas.It made no mention of Maxwell's Demon, a paradox created by James Clark Maxwell around 1870. This thought experiment presented a means by which the Second Law of Thermodynamics could be subverted -- meaning that the Second Law isn't really a law! Now, everybody knew that this couldn't be, yet nobody could come up with a way to kill Maxwell's Demon until 1951, when he was finally done in with a quantum mechanical explanation based on the necessity of the Demon using information to perpetrate his crime against the Second Law. This was a crucial point in the development of our concepts of information -- it demonstrated that the Second Law is fundamentally a "conservation of information" law. Yet this book breathes nary a word of this profound development.Another striking omission was the Uncertainty Principle, the realization that triggered the quantum mechanics revolution and provides the fundamental basis for recognizing information as a finite quantity. This major milestone in the development of concepts of information merits only a passing mention in this book.Another gaping hole was the treatment of biology. There is a perfunctory discussion of genetic information content, but completely missing was any discussion of the biosphere capturing the negentropy (information) from the sun.Lastly, I felt that the explanation of the relationship of entropy to information -- through such concepts as orderliness -- was weak. The author addresses this concept, but instead relies on looser terms such as "form", so the point isn't driven home as clearly as it could have been.Then there are the digressions. The pages devoted to Democritus' atomic hypothesis are, I think, wasted; all readers know about atoms and the material doesn't affect any subsequent discussions. Similarly, the discussions of special relativity and general relativity, while intrinsically interesting, are not germane to the subject at hand and only serve to confuse the reader. And I think that the discussion of Bayes Theorem does nothing to advance the reader's understanding.I think the book is best in its overall presentation of the paradoxes that quantum mechanics created regarding information. The discussion of Schroedinger's Cat (a classic paradox about information and reality) is good, and the detailed treatment of quantum interference is definitely the strongest point of the book. It's also a good point to emphasize, because it feeds into subsequent discussions.Sadly, the discussion of the qubit doesn't illuminate the nature of this truly mysterious concept. I concede that this is a difficult concept to explain without the use of mathematics, but I think that a better job could have been done if the subject had been explained more slowly and thoroughly.In the author's defense, I note that tackling all this without a single equation is quite a feat. He does refer to logarithms, but otherwise he keeps the math out of the picture, most likely at the insistence of his editors. Explaining information concepts without mathematics is like playing a sport with one hand tied behind your back -- it's theoretically possible but impossible to do well.So, would I recommend this book? As always, it depends upon the audience. I would NOT recommend this book to anybody who is already familiar with the basics: Second Thermo, Uncertainty Principle, Shannon, and so forth. Its explanations of the modern concepts (black holes and information, qubits, information as a physical quantity) is inadequate to the needs of a prepared reader.I would, however, recommend this book to the beginner who knows nothing about information theory. If you've heard about this stuff and are curious about the foundations, this is one of the better books to start with. However, if you want to understand the concept of the qubit or how it might be used to build computers, this book won't help.
Like the other reviewer (Frenzen), I also had read von Baeyer's book on thermodynamics, which I felt was a fantastic read. Hence I was excited to see a book on information theory, a natural follow-on topic.Like his previous book, von Baeyer has written a book with no equations, plots, or figures of any kind. Presumably, the idea behind this approach is to appeal to non-technical readers. As a person who knows some math, I found myself wishing over and over again to get just a peek at the equations behind the "talk" to figure out what is really going on. As they say about pictures, "one equation is worth a thousand words." I don't know whether the publishing proverb that "the number of copies sold is inversely proportional to the number of equations" is at work here, but omitting math so completely does a disservice to readers.The goal of von Baeyer's book is to ask, over and over again, "what is information?" In this regard, the book attempts to give nontechnical insight into Shannon's ideas. Next, the book transitions to the truly exciting edge of information, namely, quantum information theory. Since I had only a very vague idea of how qubits work before I picked up this book, I hoped to get some real insight from von Baeyer. Unfortunately, I learned nothing from the presentation. I found no clear and simple explanation as to how qubits work and how they could be used to compute something. The "bead" contest was presumably intended as a "clear as day" explanation, but it was just too much to swallow. Next, we hear about a breakthrough qubit-based algorithm for factoring integers, but there is barely a hint about how the algorithm works. (Is there a Quantum Mechanics for Dummies?)Similar comments can be made concerning how information is lost (or not lost, whatever) when a cup of tea is sucked into a black hole. In this case it isn't the lack of equations that causes confusion, but rather how to appreciate the fact that physicists take seriously the notion that warm-tea-into-the-hole lowers the entropy of the universe.In summary, a 21st century discussion of "what is information, and how might it form the basis for a new physics" is a great topic. But I learned little from this book, and I can only hope that another author will take up this task and move it to the next level of exposition. What would be ideal, is a book that lies somewhere between this book and N. Gershenfeld, Physics of Information Technology, Cambridge. (Nahin: Are you listening?)Final note concerning the Frenzen review: There is nothing "physically...high quality" about this book.
Informative, readable and fun.
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