Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, fromOur Brains to Black Holes: How the New Science of ... the Cosmos, fromOu r Brains to Black Holes

Charles Seife has not been the first to proclaim that the most fundamental entity in the universe is "information". Physicist John Wheeler, David Bohm, and Tom Siegfried among others have held this view as well, but no other author I've read has gone to such lengths to establish this idea as an undeniable conclusion. In a consise staight-forward format, Siefe delves into biology, computer science, cosmology, Relativity, and quantum theory, to establish the notion that information and the second law of thermodynamics are intricately linked. And he does this without ever allowing the reader to become lost or confused. Information is always physical, whether it is marks on paper, holes in a punch card, atoms in an electo-magnetic state on a CD, photon polarization, or up/down spin on an electron. All information has a physical representation. And like any physical thing in our universe, it abides by the laws of nature, including the laws of thermodynamics and Relativity. Information, like energy, can neither be created nor destroyed. Infomation always moves toward the most probable state: maximum entropy. And no information can travel faster than the speed of light. The qubit, which is the quantum representation of the classical bit, abides by the laws of quantum physics, and despite the weird instantaneous quantum connection between particles in an entangled state demonstrated by Bell's theorem of inequality; the qubit does not violate faster-than-light communication. Oddly, the qubit does violate one tenant of Relativity--that no effect can precede its cause. It seems that the time-asymetrical qubit has no "before" or "after". Unlike the classical bit wich resides in a binary, either/or state, the qubit can be in a superposition of states: Two states simultaneously. This fact is what makes the possibility of quantum computing so enticing. By nesting probable outcomes in a superposition of states many fewer yes/no questions are needed in algorithms, making quantum computing many orders of magnitude faster than classical computing. But, far wider implications exist for the quantum qubit. Siefe believes that the qubit's superposition of states solves two contentious vagaries of the Copenhagen Interpretation of reality: What constitutes an observer? And is there a difference between the classical and quantum worlds? Siefe says that there is no clear-cut demarcation between the subatomic and classical world, and there is no conscious observer required to collapse the wave function. This directly leads to a resolution of the famous Schrodinger's cat paradox. Since the universe at large is constantly involved in probing with light waves, neutrinos, and zero point energy, the universe itself acts as the observer. Large macro objects such as cats undergo decoherence (a collapse of the superposition of states into a classical bit) very rapidly, while a single subatomic particle or photon take a much longer time, being less likely to come into contact with nature's measurements. Information is so fundamental that Siefe believes Richard Dawkins popular book called "The Selfish Gene", would have been more appropriately titled "Selfish Information". Siefe says that when it comes to biological organisms, information is even more selfish than the gene, and can run contrary to survival of the fittest. He cites several examples of information reproducing itself even though it is detrimental to the organism, and at times, to the entire species. Information will attempt to replicate even at the expense of the proliferation of the organism carrying the information. This book was very enticing, and left me with some questions. Is it information that is the most basic entity, or is it "meaning" as physicist David Bohm maintains? Is there a difference between information and meaning? Experiments with polarization of light lead me to suspect that there is a difference. And, finally, is the brain really a classical machine as Siefe says, or is it a quantum machine as Evan Harris Walker maintains? (See my review: "The Physics of Consciousness" on Amazon). Either way, Charles Seife is right on the mark with this work. I give this book 4.5 stars for being an excellent and fun read. This review by David Kreiter, author of Quantum Reality: A New Philosophical Perspective.

Information is the key to the mysteries of the universe, according to Charles Seife, author of Zero and now of Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes (Penguin Books, 2006, ii + 296 pp.). This information is not like the letters on a page (which encode information that allows us to read words), though it includes that. It also includes any kind of charge or registered change of state, such as a 0 or 1 in computer talk. In fact, anything that can be represented by 0's and 1's is information, and all information can be so registered. In explaining how information theory has transformed thinking in the sciences, Seife covers a lot of ground--cosmology, quantum theory, biology, etc., etc.Seife does a fine job of explaining some key concepts in information theory, such as redundancy--the use of clues to indicate what some piece of information actually is. One such is the use of vowels even when not needed for capturing the words. Th ct n th ht, probably does not need the vowels to be understood. `Ingenius' and `ingenuous' would, however. One thing I did not know, meaning I was utterly clueless about, is that computers, which use compressed files that eliminate all sorts of redundancy, do make errors, though we virtually never see them because there are built-in checks and balances that catch and correct them. Since a computer operates entirely on 0's and 1's, or, more literally, on charges and lack of charges, all information that we normally think of as information can be recorded in this way.What Seife wishes to show is that information theory underlies physics and other sciences and that understanding that much helps to deal with a variety of problems, from probabilities to the famous Schrödinger's cat to black holes and what happens around them. He also discusses some problems that have yet to be resolved. Without attempting to explain his explanations, which make sense upon reading but can be difficult to keep clearly in mind, he uses as examples DNA sequences, mathematical formulas for the expansion of gases (which exactly parallel equations for the transmission of information!), and probabilities associated with questions like the state of Schrödinger's cat before anyone looks. He illuminates the issue of light functioning as a wave and as particles through information theory, showing that, while light might be considered neither or both, thought of as information resolves the paradoxes associated with it.The book, as he warns, has a dreary side, since information is closely tied to entropy, the diffusion of energy until it is evenly distributed throughout the universe. Information theory itself suggests that we are doomed to a future (incomprehensibly long in the future) when all information disappears, that is, entropy is total. For information requires differences in energy levels--a distinction between 0 and 1, so to speak--to exist, and, for Seife, everything is information. The time will come when there will be no such differences. There are more immediate threats to our existence, however.

I am amazed at the negative tone of some of the reviews on Amazon UK and feel the need to try to redress the balance. This is anexcellent introduction to the topic of information in science, including classical information theory, thermodynamics (the linkbetween thermodynamic entropy, statistical mechanics and information), the coding of information in DNA, neural networks in thebrain, relativity, quantum information and computing, and what happens to information entering a black hole.This is a book at the popular science level, so of course there is a limit to the depths with which it treats its topics and theamount of mathematics it employs. The style is journalistic, though at somewhat greater depth than one would find in, say, NewScientist, and clearly this isn't to everyone's taste. Highlights for me were the discussions of Maxwell's Demon, the spear-in-the-barn paradox (relativity), the reason that the speed of light is a limit on the speed of information (emphasis) transfer, quantumdecoherence and why 'Schroedinger's Cat' doesn't work, and the quantum zeno effect. I learned plenty from this book that I didn'tknow or hadn't understood, and I strongly recommend it. If you want these topics in greater depth (and this book is an encouragementfor that), look it up in Wikipedia or buy a textbook.Does this book make a convincing case for the information paradigm? For those of us wedded to the idea of energy and matter as the keyconcepts in physics it is not easy to make the switch to the (even more) abstract concept of information, but this book goes a prettylong way to easing the transition, and it's an enjoyable and informative ride.

Ce livre est très agréable à lire et il est passionnant ! Il est écrit dans un anglais simple et l'auteur explique de façon claire et fluide.Les premiers chapitres sont consacrés à l'histoire de la théorie de l'information, à ces liens et confrontations avec les autres théories (la thermodynamique et l'entropie, la relativité, la mécanique quantique, etc...). L'auteur parle en détails de la relativité, des paradoxes très déroutant qui en découlent. Il parle aussi des phénomènes de superposition quantique et d'intrication quantique ce qui est proprement fascinant (des particules sont liées et semblent pouvoir "communiquer" instantanément, en changeant d'état, ignorant la limite de la vitesse de la lumière, ce qui a été vérifié par des expériences !!! Malheureusement elles ne peuvent pas être utilisées pour transmettre de l'information plus vite que la lumière...).Les derniers chapitres sont plus consacrés aux implications de la théorie de l'information, qui vont jusqu'à expliquer certaines choses les plus folles (trou noirs, multiverses). Cette partie me laisse un peu perplexe, car l'auteur cite beaucoup moins de travaux ou de scientifiques contrairement aux premiers chapitres du livre. Certaines idées sont même très farfelues. Quand il parle du fait que tous les univers possibles existent, il dit qu'il y en a un dans lequel on se fait dévorer par un alien alors même qu'on était en train de lire son livre... Mais il n'est pas le seul à avancer ce genre d'idée : même le renommé Stephen Hawking dit dans "The Grand Design" qu'il y a un univers dans lequel la lune est composé de Roquefort et que ce n'est pas de la science-fiction ! Mais malgré cette partie, "Decoding the Universe" vaut le détour.

I am beginning to accept that information is a fundamental construct in our living multiverse. That being said it is only logical that consciousness is necessary to sort this information. Charles Seife has done a good job decoding information and I particularly learned a lot from his initial chapter on redundancy. For a long time I have had trouble with redundancy and have always been preoccupied with backups to everything. Coding to produce a master algorithm will be easier the closer we get to perfecting the identification of redundancy.

It's a "hard" book if you don't know about physics, communication theory, etc... but if you read it you will feel that Matrix it's closer than you think ;-)PD: I never understood the entrophy until I read this book