Information is crucial to our biological substance - our genetic code is information. But before 1950, it was not obvious that inheritance… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
Scientifically, information is a choice - a yes-or-no choice. In a broader sense, information is everything that informs our world - writing,… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
I'm trying to look at many, many things in modern life that I believe are going faster, and I'm trying to look… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
A good part of 'The Information' is about the transition from an oral to a literary culture. Books effected such a great… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
Particle physicists may freeze a second, open it up, and explore its dappled contents like surgeons pawing through an abdomen, but in… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
Memes can be visual. Our image of George Washington is a meme. We don't actually have any idea what George Washington looked… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
Patents have long served as a fundamental cog in the American machine, cherished in our national soul. — James Gleick Copy Share Image
It's important with any new technology to try to pay conscious attention to what the drawbacks might be. We choose to multitask.… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
When the Lilliputians first saw Gulliver's watch, that "wonderful kind of engine...a globe, half silver and half of some transparent metal," they identified it… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
You know, entropy is associated thermodynamically, in systems involving heat, with disorder. And in an analogous way, information is associated with disorder, which seems… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
“No one has even a definitive spelling for Cawdrey’s name (Cowdrey, Cawdry). But then, no one agreed on the spelling of most names: they… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
“Where, then, is any particular gene—say, the gene for long legs in humans? This is a little like asking where is Beethoven’s Piano Sonata… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
Alphabetical order had to be invented to help people organize the first dictionaries. On the other hand, we may have reached a point where… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
A book is not necessarily made of paper. A book is not necessarily made to be read on a Kindle. A book is a… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
“From this point of view, the laws of science represent data compression in action. A theoretical physicist acts like a very clever coding algorithm.… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
Children and scientists share an outlook on life. If I do this, what will happen? is both the motto of the child at play… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
“Your body moves always in the present, the dividing line between the past and the future, but your mind is more free. It can… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
People worry about Twitter. Twitter is banal. It's 140-character messages. By definition, you can hardly say anything profound. On the other hand, we communicate.… — James Gleick Copy Share Image
