Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes

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Information theory, the third physics revolution of the XXth century

Very Well Rounded

Basic information

covers the science of information theory

Information Theory, Entropy, and Shannon

Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes
Charles Seife
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: B000NBKIXU

Book Description

As Charles Seife reveals in this energetic new book, information theory, once the province of philosophers and linguists, has emerged as the crucial science of our time, shedding new light on the mysteries of physics, the nature of space and time and the creation and destruction of the universe itself.

With his gift for making cutting-edge science accessible and entertaining, Seife explains how theorists came to understand that information is not a construct of the mind but a fundamental element of the physical world, something that sits inside every living cell and surrounds every black hole in the cosmos. It exists, like energy, even if there is no life to observe it. Starting with the breaking of the Enigma code during World War II and building momentum with the computer revolution, information theory has taken its place at the forefront of theoretical physics as scientists begin to use it to reconcile the paradoxes of relativity and quantum mechanics that have puzzled theorists since Einstein. Lucid and exhilarating, Decoding the Universe probes the mind-boggling advances that are taking us to the brink of a new understanding of the universe.

Customer Reviews:

Information theory, the third physics revolution of the XXth century.......2007-10-03

The author has a degree in probability theory and artificial intelligence, but he is a professor of journalism and has therefore written a book which is both very entertaining and not too difficult to understand. The subject is information, which Seife claims is the third XXth century revolution in physics started by Claude Shannon and which has relations with the other two: Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

Of course, information is also related to thermodynamics and entropy, so the book contains a discussion of all these topics: thermodynamics, relativity and quantum mechanics. Famous conundrums such as Schroedinger's cat, entanglement, Maxwell's demon, etc. are analyzed from the point of view of information theory.

Here are some snippets of the book:

According to Seife, Einstein dictum "Nothing can travel faster than light" is really about information:" Information speed cannot exceed c". Another interesting fact is that what really causes computers to heat is the erasure of bits.

Seife describes recent achievements and experiments, proof that he is familiar with the latest results. One curious example is the solution of "the knight problem" in 2000 by using a DNA computer! Another one is that the entire human race has less genetic diversity than a few scores of chimps due to some kind of cataclysm about 500,000 years ago. A third one is the 1996 experiment demonstrating the existence of virtual particles (the so called Casimir effect).

In chapter 7, quantum computers are introduced and the possibility of the brain being one is briefly discussed. Unfortunately, it seems that Max Tegmark proved Roger Penrose wrong on this count. You begin to understand the power of quantum computation when the author describes Grover's algorithm to guess a number out of 16. Classically you need four yes/no answers to four questions. Grover manages the same task with two. Quantum computation reduces the complexity of some problems from n to square root of n.

I found also very interesting the reasons why the photoelectric effect cannot be explained by waves. On the other hand, interference cannot be explained by a corpuscular theory of light, so we are stuck with duality.

Towards the end, the author discusses black holes and the holographic principle: the quantity of information contained in a ball is not limited by its volume (surprisingly), but by its area. Since most cosmologists consider now the universe infinite (inflation seems to imply this) we are led, via the holographic bound, to the conclusion that the universe contains infinite copies of our own bubble universe. Seife admits that this is the most bizarre thing among the many ones described in his book.

Very Well Rounded.......2007-09-20

I have a Ph.D. in Physics and therefore know many well educated scientists, but very few have a functional concept of Information as a physical science. Begun with, mostly, Claude Shannon, this topic of study has been growing into a real science for decades now, but for some reason it is one of the most misunderstood subjects out there, even for seasoned professional scientists. Seife cuts to the heart of the matter with very clear thinking and examples from a very well rounded range of scientific points of view. Seife clearly and very engagingly demystifies many confusing topics and brings a real and almost visceral familiarity to a complex subject. After reading this, you will understand many esoteric scientific concepts better than even some professionals... and enjoy it immensely!

Basic information.......2007-08-02

This book is easy to read and is well written, but does not have much depth. The author has proven to be able to explain clearly complex ideas, but seems to lack enough background for some of the fields that the book explores. E.g., the enthusiasm with which the author explains that in an infinite universe there are many (infinite) worlds like ours seems annoying, and has little if anything to do with information or the holographic principle. It is a quite trivial idea valid for many cosmological theories.

Anyway, you can have a good time reading it, and if you are not an expert in information theory, you can find here good explanations of some basic concepts.

covers the science of information theory.......2007-07-21

This book is about information theory. The first few chapters describe information theory and then these theories are applied to biology and physics. I thought the introduction to information theory was well done, I came away with enough knowledge to follow the rest of the book. The chapter on biology, called Life, was interesting but I thought the best part of the book was the physics part. The author talks at length about Boltzman's statistical physics in a very comprehensible manner. He also explains how, although some experiments have allowed parts of light waves to travel faster than light, you can't send information over those parts of light waves so in effect you still can't travel faster than light. The author states that, from information theories perspective, you can't send information faster than light and that this law has not even been bent. Even the "spooky action at a distance" of superposition of atomic spin, which has to do with quantum mechanics, does not allow transferal of information at speeds faster than light. After reading this book my knowledge of the central concepts of information theory and statistical mechanics was greatly expanded. I even made some headway into the concepts of quantum mechanics. I highly recommend this book for those people looking looking for information about the above topics.

Information Theory, Entropy, and Shannon.......2007-07-06

1. Boltzmann, wrote S=k log W , the first law of thermodynamics deals with explaining heat, work, and energy.
2. The industrial revolution needed more powerful engines. The steam engine stars with a fire that cause water to boil into steam, which takes up more room than the equivalent water-it expands. The expansion of steam does work; it moves a piston which, in turn, can move a wheel or lift a rock or pump water. The steam then either flies away into the sky or moves into a cool chamber exposed to air and then condenses, flowing back toward the fire to begin the cycle again. The steam engine sits between high temperature object (fire) and a cold-temperature object(the air). The system will tend toward equilibrium. In allowing the heat to flow, the engine extracts some of the energy and perform useful work. Work and heat are always ways of transferring energy.
3. Carnot put a super engine flowing heat from the hot resevoir to the cold. While allowing the same amount of heat, Q, to flow the cold reservior through a heat pump back into the hot reservoir. Some of the work from the super engine can be diverted to the heat pump. "All, told no, net heat flows from the cold reservoir to the hot reservoir". A perpetual motion machine. "But nothing comes for free. It's the law." "Energy can not be created or destroyed. Energy is conserved." The second law of equilibrium states that anytime you do work, you are irreversibly increasing the equilibriumness of the universe." The second law explains why there does not exist a super engine. "Entropy always increases". "Entropy captures the configuration of the entire collection of matter in terms of probabilities-in terms of the most probable configurations of a collection of atoms, or, in our box-and marble example, the most likely outcomes wen we dump marbles in a box. The higher the probablity of a configuration of mater, the higher the entropy of that configuration."
4. "Some of themost fundamental rules in physics, the laws of thermodynamics, for example, andthe laws that tell how collections of atoms move in a chunk of matter-are deep down, actually laws about information." Shannons helped translate differential equations into a form the computer could understand and creating designs of electrical relays and flip-flo switches. Shannon created boolean logic using mathematics of manipulating 0s and 1s. Shannon uses 0s and 1s to measure the mass flow of information; he included compression algorithms into the model by exploiting redundancy in a given message. A question with N possible outcomes would need log N bits of information to distinquish between the information. Informtion encoded in 1s and 0s cand answer any question, so long as that question has a finite answer. Written language is a stream of finite symbols. Each symbol can be represented as a stream of bits. Bits are the universal medium of information. Five bits can be compressed into a one or two bits through a mapping rule. The rules make the string redundant. Shannon creates his channel capacity theorem to explain how much stuff can be sent over communication lines. "Information is intimately related to entropy and energy. The function Shannon derived was, roughly speaking, a measure of how unpredictable a string of bits is. the less predictable it is, the less able you are to generate the entire message from a smaller string of bits-in other words, the less redundant. The less redundancy a message has, the more information it can contain, so by measuring this unpredictability, Shannon hoped to be able to get at the information stored in the message." In the marbles in the box, the distribution of half the marbles on both the left and right side had the highest entropy and the distribution with all the marbles on either the left or right side had the lowest entropy. The entropy distribution of 1s ands 0s of symbols directly relates to the amount of information of the stream.
5. Shannon figured out how much energy was required to transmit a bit from place to place under certain conditions. Information theory is the science of manipulation and transmission of bits, is very closely tied to thermodynamics. Maxwell's entropy problem could use information theory instead thermodynamics to separate the hot atoms from the cold atoms. Information does not come free, it requires energy. Szilard calculated that kT log 2 joules for every bit of information. Using that useful energy increases the entropy of the box. The process of obtaining and acting on the information increases the entropy of the universe. The opening and closing of the shutter was based on the information and decreases the entropy. Shannon information entropy and thermal entropy are related. Once the energy is stopped the box returns to equilibrium. A turning machine could acts as the controller for the shutter, opening and closing.
6. Memory reusablity requires energy and increases entropy. "Bits can be added without consuming energy or increasing the energy of the universe. You can multiple bits. You can negate them. But one action in a computer generates heat, which when dissipated into the environment, increases the entropy in the universe. That action is erasing a bit."

A System Architecture Approach to the Brain: From Neurons to Consciousness

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A System Architecture Approach to the Brain: From Neurons to Consciousness
L. Andrew Coward
Manufacturer: Nova Biomedical Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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What Should be Computed to Understand and Model Brain Function? From Robotics, Soft Computing, Biology and Neuroscience to Cognitive Philosophy

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What Should be Computed to Understand and Model Brain Function? From Robotics, Soft Computing, Biology and Neuroscience to Cognitive Philosophy

Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
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Binding: Hardcover

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Electronic Brains: Stories from the Dawn of the Computer Age

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Great snapshots of computing's beginnings
Excellent Lay History of the Early Days of Computers
A useful historical narrative on computers development
Covers the period just after World war II when modern computers were developed

Electronic Brains: Stories from the Dawn of the Computer Age
Mike Hally
Manufacturer: Joseph Henry Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0309096308

Book Description

The first truly modern computers were introduced just after World War II. Practical, electronic, multipurpose, digital machines with memory for both data and programs, they were developed by a range of pioneering teams across four continents. This is the story of how it all started.

We've come so far, so fast. Within a relatively short period of time, we've managed to put enormous computing power in offices and homes around the globe. But before there was an IBM, before there were laptops and personal PCs, there were small, independent teams of pioneers working on the development of the very first computer. Spread across four continents and ranging in temperament and talent, they built practical, electronic, multi-purpose, digital machines with memory for both data and programs.

Tracing the period just after World War II when the first truly modern computers were developed, The Electronic Brain chronicles the escapades of the world's first "techies." Some of the initial projects are quite famous and well known, such as "LEO", the Lyons Electronic Office, which was developed by the catering company J. Lyons & Co. in London in the 1940s. Others are a bit more arcane, such as the ABC, which was built in a basement at Iowa State College and was abandoned to obscurity at the beginning of WWII. And then - like the ale of the Rand 409 which was constructed in a barn in Connecticut under the watchful eye of a stuffed moose - there are the stories that are virtually unknown. All combine to create a fascinating history of a now-ubiquitous technology.

Relying on extensive interviews from surviving members of the original teams of hardware jockeys, author Mike Hally recreates the atmosphere of the early days of computing. Rich with provocative and entertaining descriptions, we are introduced to the many eccentric, obsessive, and fiercely loyal men and women who laid the foundations for the computerized world in which we now live. As the acronyms fly fast and furious - UNIVAC, CSIRAC, and MESM, to name just a few -- The Electronic Brain provides a vivid sense of time, place, and science.

Customer Reviews:

Great snapshots of computing's beginnings.......2007-04-02

This is an easily accessible, non-technical, and very interesting look at most of computing's early history: the machines that were conceived (if not operational) from around 1950 and earlier.

Although nearly every system in that category everything gets a mention here, the author concentrates on lesser-known systems, some of which are truly obscure. For example, he tells the story of the Remington 409, which has a good case for being the first mass-produced "business computer". It was programmed--like ENIAC--by plugboard rather than being a stored-program machine, but much more sophisticated than early IBM devices like the 603 Electronic Multiplier. Around 1500 of them appear to have been sold, none of which survive--the only remaining artifacts are a few components preserved by the historical society of Rowayton, a small town in Connecticut where the system was built. The story of the early Russian machines (built in a former monastery in what is now Ukraine) present a fascinating view of the intersection of technology and ideology.

Something I particularly liked about this book was the descriptions of where the artifacts can be found today--indeed, I wish there were more pictures from those museums and other institutions. It seems that the only machine of that era which has been fully preserved is the first Australian computer, the CSIRO Mark I! Everything else exists only in fragments or (like the 409) just as memories--and in some cases as replicas (like the Manchester Baby) and/or emulators (ENIAC-on-a-chip).

Aother great aspect of this book is that it is based on large part on new interviews (by the author) of those pioneers who are still living. This style makes for a very readable account, although it also brings the inevitable inconsistencies that creep in over 50 years of memory. These accounts put a human face on the early development teams, who were truly pioneers even though they often didn't realize it until much later (and after the machines were scrapped).

This book makes a good companion to more academically-oriented texts like "The First Computers" (Rojas and Hashhagen) and Emerson Pugh's histories of IBM. Even so, there's a definite place for a truly comprehensive popular history of early computing that would pull together all the threads: the well-known machines like ENIAC, Harvard Mark I, and IBM's; the obscure machines that this book covers; the analog machines like the Differential Analyzer; and the cryptologic machines like Colossus, the Bombe, and Vannevar Bush's Rapid Analytical Machines, up through 1955 or so when the field really started to come together coherently. Authors, are you out there?

Excellent Lay History of the Early Days of Computers.......2006-09-02

I have a Computer Science degree, but you don't need one in order to appreciate this book. It is a collection of stories about different computers, companies, and people from the early days of electronic digital computers (although there is a story about an analog, hydraulic one!) in the middle 20th century. And it isn't only US computers: The UK, Australia, and the USSR are also represented.

Anyone who enjoys non-fiction and has a curiosity about origins will like this book; anyone who enjoys computers and tinkering will appreciate the stories it contains. Even business people might crack a smile at some of the practices in the days before Bill Gates existed.

The stories are not highly technical, but the book is not a children's book; it is definitely suitable for high school age and above. There are some pictures, but most of the enjoyment comes from the extensive quotations by people who were actually there at the time. These are so integral because, before this was a book, it was a BBC Radio production. The result is a very readable and intelligent volume that is definitely worth a read.

A useful historical narrative on computers development.......2006-03-04

This book is informative and easy to read. It reviews the history of computers development. The first attempt at developing electronic computers was carried out by John Atanasoff, a mathematics professor at Iowa State College in 1937. Atanasoff joined by Clifford Berry built a prototype in 1939, which was called the ABC machine. Atanasoff, however did not recognize the importance of his development, and moved on to other jobs. John Mauchly, a physics professor at University of Pennsylvania during World War II and Presper Eckert an electric engineer, were the first people who entertained serious thoughts about creating an electronic computer. They developed it with funding from the US Army, which wanted to speed up the calculations of ballistic tables for new weapons destined the war effort. Atanasoff and Mauchley first met at a conference on December 26, 1940. This meeting led to a discussion about mutual interests and Atanasoff `s machine, however Mauchley proved to be a lot more dedicated for the development of an electronic computer.

After the war, Mauchley and Eckert left the university of Pennsylvania and set up a small company, the Electronic Control Company at Philadelphia, PA. Mauchley assisted by a team of dedicated and technically competent people continued the development for electronic computers, however many people did not see the need for computers and the company was beset financial difficulties. Ultimately they were successful in developing a Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) for the Census Bureau, which helped speed up 1950 US census. In the eyes of the general public computers was at best a curiosity. This perception started changing after CBS used the UNIVAC services for forecasting the 1952 US Presidential elections.

Resistance to change, new ideas and innovation is a well-known phenomenon. Organizations, communities and nations experience it in varying degrees at different times. The development of the computer was no exception. Mauchley was an optimistic person endowed with an entrepreneurial spirit. His perseverance, drive, and vision blazed the trail for the development of computers, but he and his company did not make it as financial successes. Remington Rand acquired his Electronic Control Company and several companies pursued further development.

The British LEO development of the computers provides a great example for the importance of confidence and enlightened leadership.It opened the door for using the computers in business and systems applications, such as payroll, inventory management, and accounting. The Australian development of the computer, also steeped in the traditions of open-minded inquiry, developed the first computer-generated music and the first college courses in numerical methods.

The book's narration of the history of development of computers at the former USSR is useful and in my view instructive. The USSR inherited a well-educated class, from which many scientists achieved international renown from Czarist Russia. However, computer development at the USSR encountered resistance from an "ideological environment", which rejected the whole field of cybernetics. Soviet scientists developed several interesting concepts and machines in support of their defense industries, however the communist ideological bent that rejected freedom and open-minded inquiry hampered the full potential of Soviet scientists. Ultimately the Soviets computer development fizzled and they decided to imitate the American IBM 360 computer system. Political ideologies such as fascism, communism and now militant Islam, suffer from intrinsic weaknesses that reject freedom and open-minded inquiry that ultimately lead to their defeat.

Last but not least the narrative about the early success of IBM in the computer business is worth noting. In the early 20th century, IBM was a big company that overpowered its competition, which at times used questionable business practices. However, Thomas J. Watson, Sr. embraced a vision of growth against great odds during the 1930's depression and expectations of economic slowdown after World War II. Watson came up with IBM's motto "Think" and nurtured an organizational culture that valued knowledge and employees.His vision of growth and faith in his people were major factors in IBM's early success in the computer market.

This book primarily narrates the history of the computer development. The narrative pays tribute to the accomplishments of many scientists, engineers, military and business leaders from different nations, cultures and political ideologies.

Covers the period just after World war II when modern computers were developed.......2005-12-04

Mike Hally's Electronic Brains: Stories From The Dawn Of The Computer Age covers the period just after World war II when modern computers were developed, examining some of the world's first 'techies' and projects which fostered computer discoveries. Author Mike Hally traveled around the world interviewing surviving members of early computer teams and researchers, and provides a series of rich descriptions from their experiences, paired with a lively history.

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Review from a Neurosurgeon

From Computer to Brain
William W. Lytton
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Fundamentals of Computational Neuroscience

ASIN: 0387955267

Book Description

Biology undergraduates, medical students and life-science graduate students often have limited mathematical skills. Similarly, physics, math and engineering students have little patience for the detailed facts that make up much of biological knowledge. Teaching computational neuroscience as an integrated discipline requires that both groups be brought forward onto common ground. This book does this by making ancillary material available in an appendix and providing basic explanations without becoming bogged down in unnecessary details. The book will be suitable for undergraduates and beginning graduate students taking a computational neuroscience course and also to anyone with an interest in the uses of the computer in modeling the nervous system.

Customer Reviews:

Review from a Neurosurgeon.......2007-01-10

As someone who is interested in the subject of computational neuroscience, I found this book of great help. It is the best introduction to this very interesting and new discipline and well prepares the reader for more advanced reading of the subject.

New Directions in Statistical Signal Processing: From Systems to Brains (Neural Information Processing)

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New Directions in Statistical Signal Processing: From Systems to Brains (Neural Information Processing)

Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262083485

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Signal processing and neural computation have separately and significantly influenced many disciplines, but the cross-fertilization of the two fields has begun only recently. Research now shows that each has much to teach the other, as we see highly sophisticated kinds of signal processing and elaborate hierachical levels of neural computation performed side by side in the brain. In New Directions in Statistical Signal Processing, leading researchers from both signal processing and neural computation present new work that aims to promote interaction between the two disciplines.

The book's 14 chapters, almost evenly divided between signal processing and neural computation, begin with the brain and move on to communication, signal processing, and learning systems. They examine such topics as how computational models help us understand the brain's information processing, how an intelligent machine could solve the "cocktail party problem" with "active audition" in a noisy environment, graphical and network structure modeling approaches, uncertainty in network communications, the geometric approach to blind signal processing, game-theoretic learning algorithms, and observable operator models (OOMs) as an alternative to hidden Markov models (HMMs).

The Posthuman Condition: Consciousness Beyond the Brain

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The Posthuman Condition: Consciousness Beyond the Brain
Robert Pepperell
Manufacturer: Intellect Ltd
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Computers from Sand Table to Electronic Brain

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Computers from Sand Table to Electronic Brain
Alan Vorwald , and Frank Clark
Manufacturer: Mcgraw Hill Book Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Computers! From Sand Table to Electronic Brain
Alan Vorwald , and Frank Clark
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Computers! From Sand Table to Electronic Brain (Revised Edition)

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Computers! From Sand Table to Electronic Brain (Revised Edition)
Alan Vorwald , and Frank Clark
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