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The Information
A History, a Theory, a Flood
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Narrated by:
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Rob Shapiro
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Written by:
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James Gleick
About this listen
James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: A revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality - the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.
The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: Aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.
©2011 James Gleick (P)2011 Random HouseYou may also enjoy...
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- Making a New Science
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-
Overall
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Performance
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Story
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- A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions
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- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.
-
-
Enjoyed it greatly
- By James on 2023-06-11
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-
Livewired
- The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain
- Written by: David Eagleman
- Narrated by: David Eagleman
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The answers to these questions are right behind our eyes. The greatest technology we have ever discovered on our planet is the three-pound organ carried in the vault of the skull. This book is not simply about what the brain is; it is about what it does. The magic of the brain is not found in the parts it’s made of but in the way those parts unceasingly reweave themselves in an electric, living fabric.
-
-
Fascinating!
- By Daniel Fraser on 2023-04-17
Written by: David Eagleman
-
Scale
- The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life, in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies
- Written by: Geoffrey West
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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-
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- By Amazon Customer on 2020-05-23
Written by: Geoffrey West
-
Life 3.0
- Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
- Written by: Max Tegmark
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How will artificial intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society, and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology - and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.
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-
Truly fascinating
- By Russell Cook on 2018-10-25
Written by: Max Tegmark
-
The Silk Roads
- A New History of the World
- Written by: Peter Frankopan
- Narrated by: Laurence Kennedy
- Length: 24 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures, and religions. From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the 20th century - this book shows how the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East.
-
-
Great story. Horrible narration.
- By Reviewer on 2023-12-19
Written by: Peter Frankopan
What the critics say
What listeners say about The Information
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Overall
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- Quenton
- 2019-09-26
So, hear me out...
What could be more boring than a whole book about information? At least that's what I thought when I saw it. Nevertheless, because I like the author and narrator and I'm familiar with information theory, I decided to give this book a try and honestly, it's amazing! the history he recounts was all new *ahem* information for me. I found myself truly captivated in most chapters like I was listening to a detective novel expecting the villian to be revealed on the next page. this audiobook garnered the most bookmarks I've ever given any audiobook.
Well done, Mr. Gleick. Well done.
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- kelly hofer
- 2019-08-29
love love
this was a fundamental shift in thinking about how the universe is best understood. I loved it
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