What Just Happened: A Chronicle From the Information Frontier
Page 56
———. Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age. Mill Valley, Calif.: Strawberry Press, 1998.
Tufte, Edward R. “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.” Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, 2003.
Turing, Alan M. “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 42 (1936): 230–65.
———. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Minds and Machines 59, no. 236 (1950): 433–60.
———. “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 237, no. 641 (1952): 37–72.
Turnbull, Laurence. The Electro-Magnetic Telegraph, With an Historical Account of Its Rise, Progress, and Present Condition. Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1853.
Vail, Alfred. The American Electro Magnetic Telegraph: With the Reports of Congress, and a Description of All Telegraphs Known, Employing Electricity Or Galvanism. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1847.
Verdú, Sergio. “Fifty Years of Shannon Theory.” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 44, no. 6 (1998): 2057–78.
Vincent, David. Literacy and Popular Culture: England 1750–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Virilio, Paul. The Information Bomb. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2000.
von Baeyer, Hans Christian. Maxwell’s Demon: Why Warmth Disperses and Time Passes. New York: Random House, 1998.
———. Information: The New Language of Science. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004.
von Foerster, Heinz. Cybernetics: Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems: Transactions of the Seventh Conference, March 23–24, 1950. New York: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1951.
———. Cybernetics: Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems: Transactions of the Eighth Conference, March 15–16, 1951. New York: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1952.
———. “Interview with Stefano Franchi, Güven Güzeldere, and Eric Minch.” Stanford Humanities Review 4, no. 2 (1995). Available online at http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/interviewvonf.html.
von Neumann, John. The Computer and the Brain. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958.
———. Collected Works. Vols. 1–6. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1961.
Vulpiani, A., and Roberto Livi. The Kolmogorov Legacy in Physics: A Century of Turbulence and Complexity. Lecture Notes in Physics, no. 642. Berlin: Springer, 2003.
Waldrop, M. Mitchell. “Reluctant Father of the Digital Age.” Technology Review (July–August 2001): 64–71.
Wang, Hao. “Some Facts About Kurt Gödel.” Journal of Symbolic Logic 46 (1981): 653–59.
Watson, David L. “Biological Organization.” Quarterly Review of Biology 6, no. 2 (1931): 143–66.
Watson, James D. The Double Helix. New York: Atheneum, 1968.
———. Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix. New York: Knopf, 2002.
———. Molecular Models of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Watson, James D., and Francis Crick. “A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid.” Nature 171 (1953): 737.
———. “Genetical Implications of the Structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid.” Nature 171 (1953): 964–66.
Watts, Duncan J. “Networks, Dynamics, and the Small-World Phenomenon.” American Journal of Sociology 105, no. 2 (1999): 493–527.
———. Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks Between Order and Randomness. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999.
———. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. New York: Norton, 2003.
Watts, Duncan J., and Steven H. Strogatz. “Collective Dynamics of ‘Small-World’ Networks.” Nature 393 (1998): 440–42.
Weaver, Warren. “The Mathematics of Communication.” Scientific American 181, no. 1 (1949): 11–15.
Wells, H. G. World Brain. London: Methuen, 1938.
———. A Short History of the World. San Diego: Book Tree, 2000.
Wheeler, John Archibald. “Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links.” Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (1989): 354–68.
———. At Home in the Universe. Masters of Modern Physics, vol. 9. New York: American Institute of Physics, 1994.
Wheeler, John Archibald, with Kenneth Ford. Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics. New York: Norton, 1998.
Whitehead, Alfred North, and Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910.
Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1961.
———. I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964.
Wiener, Philip P., ed. Leibniz Selections. New York: Scribner’s, 1951.
Wilkins, John. Mercury: Or the Secret and Swift Messenger. Shewing, How a Man May With Privacy and Speed Communicate His Thoughts to a Friend At Any Distance. 3rd ed. London: John Nicholson, 1708.
Williams, Michael. A History of Computing Technology. Washington, D.C.: IEEE Computer Society, 1997.
Wilson, Geoffrey. The Old Telegraphs. London: Phillimore, 1976.
Winchester, Simon. The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Wisdom, J. O. “The Hypothesis of Cybernetics.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2, no. 5 (1951): 1–24.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigation. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: Macmillan, 1953.
———. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1967.
Woodward, Kathleen. The Myths of Information: Technology and Postindustrial Culture. Madison, Wisc.: Coda Press, 1980.
Woolley, Benjamin. The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron’s Daughter. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Wynter, Andrew. “The Electric Telegraph.” Quarterly Review 95 (1854): 118–64.
———. Subtle Brains and Lissom Fingers: Being Some of the Chisel-Marks of Our Industrial and Scientific Progress. London: Robert Hardwicke, 1863.
Yeo, Richard. “Reading Encyclopedias: Science and the Organization of Knowledge in British Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences, 1730–1850.” Isis 82:1 (1991): 24–49.
———. Encyclopædic Visions: Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Yockey, Hubert P. Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Young, Peter. Person to Person: The International Impact of the Telephone. Cambridge: Granta, 1991.
Yourgrau, Palle. A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Yovits, Marshall C., George T. Jacobi, and Gordon D. Goldstein, eds. Self-Organizing Systems. Washington D.C.: Spartan, 1962.
Index
It is much easier to talk about information than it is to say what it is you are talking about. A surprising number of books, and this includes textbooks, have the word information in their title without bothering to include it in the index.
—Fred I. Dretske (1979)
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
Aaboe, Asger, 2.1, 2.2
abacus, 4.1, 8.1
A B C Universal Commercial Electric Telegraphic Code, The (Clauson-Thue), 5.1, 5.2
abstraction
logic and, 2.1, 2.2
in mathematical computation
origins of thinking and
words representing, 2.1, 3.1
Adams, Brooks
Adams, Frederick
Adams, Henry
Aeschylus
African languages; see also talking drums
Aharonov, Dorit
Airy, George Biddell
“Algebra for Theoretica
l Genetics, An” (Shannon), 6.1, 6.2, 6.3
algebra of logic, prl.1, 8.1; see also symbolic logic
algorithmic information theory, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, 12.5
algorithm(s)
to calculate complexity, 12.1, 12.2
to control accuracy and speed of communication, 7.1, 7.2
data compression
to describe biological processes, 10.1, 10.2
to generate uninteresting number, 12.1, 12.2
historical evolution of, 2.1, 2.2, 4.1, 7.1
Lovelace’s operations for Analytical Engine as
for measurement of computability
for measurement of information, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4
number tables based on, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3
for proof of number’s randomness, 12.1, 12.2
to reconstruct phylogeny
scientific method as, 12.1, 12.2
Shor’s factoring, 13.1, 13.2
Turing machine, 7.1, 7.2
Alice in Wonderland (Carroll)
Allen, William
alphabet(s)
as code
evolution of, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1
evolution of telegraph coding systems and, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4
information transmission capacity of, 6.1, 7.1
letter frequency in, 1.1, 7.1
Morse code representation of
order of letters in, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
organization of information based on, 3.1, 3.2
AltaVista, epl.1, epl.2
altruism, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3
American Telephone & Telegraph, prl.1, 6.1, 7.1
amino acids, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6
Ampère, André-Marie, 5.1, 5.2
amplitude modulation, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3
analog technology, 8.1, 8.2
Analytical Engine, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 4.10, 4.11, 4.12, 6.1, 7.1, 8.1
Analytical Society, 4.1, 4.2
Anatomy of Melancholy, The (Burton)
Anglo-American Cyclopedia, The (Borges)
Anglo-Saxon speech, 3.1, 3.2
anthropocentrism
antiaircraft guns and artillery, prl.1, 6.1, 6.2, 7.1, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 12.1, 12.2
aperiodic crystals, 9.1, 10.1
Arabic numerals
Arcadia (Stoppard), 9.1, 9.2, 14.1
Aristotle and Aristotelian philosophy, prl.1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 14.1, 14.2
Armani, Giorgio, 14.1, 14.2
Arte of Rhetorique, The (Wilson)
artificial intelligence, prl.1, 12.1; see also machines, attribution of thinking to
Ashby, W. Ross
astronomy
atomic science, prl.1, 7.1, 8.1, 9.1, 9.2, 12.1
Atwood, Margaret, 11.1, epl.1, epl.2
Auden, W. H.
automata, 4.1, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3
chess automata
aviation radio
Babbage, Charles, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 6.1, 6.2, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.1, 8.2
Analytical Engine of, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 4.10, 4.11, 4.12, 6.1, 7.1, 8.1
at Cambridge, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5
cryptographic work of, 5.1, 5.2, 7.1
Difference Engine of, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 4.10, 4.11, 4.12, 4.13, 4.14, 4.15, 4.16, 4.17, 4.18, 6.1
early life, 4.1, 4.2
information transmission studies of, 4.1, 4.2
language work of, 4.1, 4.2
Lovelace and, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9
mechanical notation system of, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 6.1
on persistence of thought and information, 14.1, 14.2, 14.3
personal qualities, 4.1, 4.2
railroad studies of, 4.1, 4.2
range of interests and expertise, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6
vision of future of, 4.1, 4.2
Babbage, Georgiana Whitmore
Babel, 14.1, 14.2, 14.3, epl.1, epl.2
Babylonian culture, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4
Bacon, Francis
bacteria, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3
Baker, Nicholson, 14.1, 14.2, epl.1, epl.2
Balbus, Johannes
Balzac, Honoré de
bandwidth, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 8.1, 8.2, 12.1
ban unit of probability
Banville, John
Barber paradox
Baruch, Bernard M.
Barwise, Jon
Bates, John
Bateson, Gregory, 8.1, 8.2
Baudot code
Bavelas, Alex
Beethoven, Ludwig von, 11.1, 15.1, epl.1
Bell, Alexander Graham, 6.1, 6.2
Bell, Gordon
Bell Laboratories, prl.1, prl.2, prl.3, prl.4, 1.1, 3.1, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.1, 8.2
Bell System Technical Journal, prl.1, 6.1, 7.1
Bell Telephone Company
Bennett, Charles H., 11.1, 11.2, 12.1, 12.2, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4, 13.5, 13.6, 13.7, 13.8, 13.9, 13.10, 13.11, 15.1
Benton, Billy
Benzer, Seymour, 10.1, 10.2
Bernoulli numbers, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3
Berry, G. G., 6.1, 6.2
Berry’s paradox, 6.1, 6.2, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3
Bible
Bierce, Ambrose
Bigelow, Julian
binary operations
coding systems for, 5.1, 5.2
representation of relay circuits as
in telegraphy, 7.1, 8.1
in use of alphabetical ordering systems
see also bit(s)
biology
entropy and, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4
evolutionary, 10.1, 11.1
fundamental particles of
of human ecosystem, 10.1, 10.2
information processing in, prl.1, prl.2, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4
molecular, 9.1, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3
purposeful action in processes of, 9.1, 9.2
see also genetics; neurophysiology
biosphere, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3
bit(s)
as basis of physics, prl.1, prl.2, 13.1, 13.2
biological measurements
cost of information processing
data compression strategies, 12.1, 12.2
decision-making requirements
definition of, prl.1, 7.1
first usage
growth of measuring units, 14.1, 14.2
meaning and
measurement of cosmos in, prl.1, 14.1
purpose
transmission by fire beacon, 1.1, 1.2
black holes, prl.1, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4
Blair, Ann
Blair, Earl
Bletchley Park, 7.1, 7.2, 8.1
Blount, Thomas, 3.1, 3.2
Bodleian Library, 3.1, 3.2, 6.1
Bohr, Niels, prl.1, 6.1, 13.1
Boltzmann, Ludwig, 9.1, 9.2
Bombe machine
book burning
Boole, George, prl.1, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 6.1, 6.2, 8.1, 8.2, 12.1
Borges, Jorge Luis, 14.1, 14.2, epl.1, epl.2
botanical dictionaries, 14.1, 14.2, 15.1
Bradley, Henry, 3.1, 3.2
Brahe, Tycho, 4.1, 15.1
brain; see neurophysiology
Brassard, Gilles, 13.1, 13.2
“Breakdown of Physics in Gravitational Collapse, The” (Hawking)
Brecht, Bertolt
Breguet, Abraham-Louis, 5.1, 5.2
Brenner, Sydney, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3
Brewster, David, 4.1, 8.1
Bridenbaugh, Carl, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3
Briggs, Henry, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5
Brillouin, Léon, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3
Brin, Sergey, 14.1, epl.1
Broadbent, Donald, 8.1, 8.2
Brosin, Henry
Brown, Robert
Browne, Thomas, 1.1, 1.2, 5.1
Brownian motion, 6.1, 6.2, 8.1
Brunel, Isambard Kingdom
Buchanan, James<
br />
Bullokar, John
Burgess, Anthony
Burney, Venetia
Burton, Robert, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3
Bush, Vannevar, prl.1, prl.2, 5.1n, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.1
Butler, Samuel, 2.1, 10.1, 10.2
butterfly effect
Byron, Augusta Ada; see Lovelace, Ada
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 4.1, 4.2
bytes
Cage, John, 12.1, 12.2
Cairns-Smith, Alexander, 10.1, 10.2
calculators, calculating machines
analog and digital
Babbage’s Analytical Engine, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 4.10, 4.11, 4.12, 6.1, 7.1, 8.1
Babbage’s Difference Engine, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 4.10, 4.11, 4.12, 4.13, 4.14, 4.15, 4.16, 4.17, 4.18, 6.1
definition of “calculation,” 7.1
Differential Analyzer, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4
in evolution of information technology, prl.1, 4.1
use of relay circuits in
see also computation; computer(s); machines
calculus, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, epl.1
Campbell, George, prl.1, prl.2
“Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?” (Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen)
Carnot, Nicolas Sadi
Carpenter, Margaret
Carreras, José
Carrington, John F., 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5
Carroll, Lewis, 5.1, 5.2, 14.1
Carty, John J.
catalogues of information, 5.1, 14.1, 15.1
botanical, 14.1, 14.2
of cryptographic techniques
genes as, 10.1, 10.2
for libraries, 3.1, 3.2
search techniques for, 15.1, epl.1, epl.2, epl.3
of telegraph messages
see also dictionaries
Catholicon (Balbus)
Cawdrey, Robert, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, 3.14
Cawdrey, Thomas
cellular processes, prl.1, prl.2, 9.1, 9.2
Celts
Central Dogma
“Certain Factors Affecting Telegraph Speed” (Nyquist)
Chadwyck-Healey, Charles
chain letters, as examples of memes, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3
Chains (Karinthy)
Chaitin, Gregory, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, 12.5, 12.6, 12.7, 12.8, 12.9, 12.10, 12.11, 12.12, 12.13, 12.14, 12.15
Champernowne, David
Chandler, Raymond
Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan
channels
applications of information theory