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The Information: a History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick is great. Starts with Ada Lovelace/Charles Babbage and goes on from there, I found it fascinating.
by Aaronstotle 7y ago
The Information: a History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick is great. Starts with Ada Lovelace/Charles Babbage and goes on from there, I found it fascinating.
- ellius 7y agoSeconded, this is a really excellent book.
- westurner 7y ago"The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" starts with "1 | Drums That Talk" re: African drum messaging; a complex coding scheme: > Here was a messaging system that outpaced the best couriers, the fastest horses on good roads with way stations and relays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_Theory,_a_Flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8701960-the-information https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8701960-the-information From "Polynesian People Used Binary Numbers 600 Years Ago" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/polynesian-people-used-binary-numbers-600-years-ago/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/polynesian-people... : > Binary arithmetic, the basis of all virtually digital computation today, is usually said to have been invented at the start of the eighteenth century by the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz. But a study now shows that a kind of binary system was already in use 300 years earlier among the people of the tiny Pacific island of Mangareva in French Polynesia.