Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes | 
|  | | | Title: | Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes | | Author: | Charles Seife | | Publisher: | Penguin (Non-Classics) | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 30 January, 2007 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0143038397 / 9780143038399 | | List Price: | $15.00 | | You Save: | $4.80 | | Amazon Price: | $10.20 | |
 This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $6.00. |
The HTML code below can be pasted onto your web-site, your MySpace page, or blog - or any number of similar places - to create a link to this page: If, instead of a text link, you'd like to create a link to this page which will display the book cover, if it's available, then the code below will do exactly that:
Check for the same book at these other US book sites:
• [ Abebooks ] • [ Alibris ] • [ Barnes & Noble ] • [ Half.com ] • [ Powells ] … or check UK bookstores
| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
The author of Zero explains the scientific revolution that is transforming the way we understand our world Previously the domain of philosophers and linguists, information theory has now moved beyond the province of code breakers to become the crucial science of our time. In Decoding the Universe, Charles Seife draws on his gift for making cutting-edge science accessible to explain how this new tool is deciphering everything from the purpose of our DNA to the parallel universes of our Byzantine cosmos. The result is an exhilarating adventure that deftly combines cryptology, physics, biology, and mathematics to cast light on the new understanding of the laws that govern life and the universe.
| Other Items You May Enjoy:
Browse Books From These Related Subjects:
Customer Reviews:
• Very Well Rounded 20 September, 2007
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!
- Reviewed by customer ID: A13EHGP2QTDMXP
• Information Theory, The Third Physics Revolution Of The Xxth Century 03 October, 2007
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.
- Reviewed by customer ID: ADXCXX15KNZC9
• Basic Information 02 August, 2007
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.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1KFCCRRXEB5KY
• Dissapointing Mixture Of Science And Lousy Journalism 06 March, 2008
A very well written book and a thought provoking one. However, it dares to claim that information is the ultimate theory that explains it all, failing short of convincing the reader that that is the case. There are plenty of exaggerated statements about how "information" explains everything, that energy is the same as information, etc., all of them based on very week connections and evidence. As many other authors, this one confuses theory of information, with Shannon's theory of efficient message coding. The author also keeps confused with the role of the observer in the information processes, sometimes requiring it/him/her, sometimes dismissing it/him/her as unnecessary.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3UM2ST3LSF8ZW
• Information Theory As Thriller 04 January, 2008
This is great writing, though not exactly science writing. Because competing or deflating theories or studies are not presented, Seife's arguments are speculative, not of the smoke-and-mirror quality of new-agers, but based upon careful presentation of amazing scientific theory, experiment, mystery. Therefore, I take the book's argument not as an advance over prior theories of physics, but as a provocation of them. As long as the reader takes it for this, it can masterfully explain and strangely entertain. Seife will take you on a marvelous ride, expose you to such intelligibilities as: "... you are bringing the Earth infinitesimally closer to a state of chaos when you chill down a bottle of beer in your fridge" (50) or "... altering the structure of the universe with information" (257).
Even if you don't buy all his qubits or multiverses, Seife will inform you of entropy, relativity and quantum physics in a way that can help the non-scientific reader better understand those theories.
As I followed it, Information theory seemed to veer from the intuitive/simple to the counterintuitive/complex. One way of using Information (signaling to Lexington that the British are coming) seemed not to fit the way it may be used to describe electrons. This veering may be peculiar to me or it may be the nature of how Information serves in different contexts.
Complex Information has never been so compelling. It reads quickly, like a pot-boiler/page turner.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2ANL0QTHWJCNJ
|
