Information Theory

Behind the familiar surfaces of the telephone, radio, and television lies a sophisticated and intriguing body of knowledge known as information theory. This is the theory that has permitted the rapid development of all sorts of communication, from color television to the clear transmission of photographs from the vicinity of Jupiter. Even more revolutionary progress is expected in the future.  

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...

America’s struggling economy needs a better philosophy than the college student’s lament,“I can’t be out of money, I still have checks in my checkbook!” We've tried a government spending spree, and we've learned it doesn't work. Now is the time to rededicate our country to the pursuit of free-market capitalism, before we’re buried under a mound of debt and unfunded entitlements. But how do we navigate between government spending that’s too big to sustain and financial institutions that are "too big to fail?"

During the final three years of the Obama administration, Richard Stengel, the former editor of Time magazine and an Under Secretary of State, was the single person in government tasked with unpacking, disproving, and combating both ISIS's messaging and Russian disinformation. Then, in 2016, as the presidential election unfolded, Stengel watched as Donald Trump used disinformation himself, weaponizing the grievances of Americans who felt overlooked. In fact, Stengel quickly came to see how all three players had used the same playbook: ISIS sought to make Islam great again....

Governments pay her. Criminals fear her. Nobody sees her coming. Vanessa “Michael” Munroe deals in information—expensive information—working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. Born to missionary parents in...

This new book by New York Times best-selling author George Gilder tackles key questions about how monetarism distorts the economy and leads to misallocation of investment. Gilder covers a variety of topics, including Milton Friedman's greatest "error", money supply and velocity, the perils of high-volume trading, Bitcoin and how it mimics gold, and why a gold standard is superior to targeting based on a basket of commodities.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The most influential book of the past seventy-five years: a groundbreaking exploration of everything we know about what we don’t know, now with a new section called “On Robustness and Fragility.” A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal...

Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, and...

Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile...

The Void has shown itself, forcing Dale to confront an all new type of enemy, one that cannot merely be beaten back with physical force. He must adapt to the rules of these new monsters and learn how to overcome them, while keeping the threats from within his own world from destroying everything. 

What is economic growth? And why, historically, has it occurred in only a few places? Previous efforts to answer these questions have focused on institutions, geography, finances, and psychology. But according to MIT's anti-disciplinarian César Hidalgo, understanding the nature of economic growth demands transcending the social sciences and including the natural sciences of information, networks, and complexity. To understand the growth of economies, Hidalgo argues, we first need to understand the growth of order.

Information architecture (IA) is far more challenging - and necessary - than ever. To guide you through this broad ecosystem, this popular guide - now in its fourth edition - provides essential concepts, methods, and techniques for digital design that have withstood the test of time. UX designers, product managers, developers, and anyone involved in digital design will learn how to create semantic structures that will help people engage with your message.

In the coming decades, artificial intelligence (AI) could revolutionize the way humans wage war. The military organizations that best innovate and adapt to this AI revolution will likely gain significant advantages over their rivals. To this end, great powers such as the United States, China, and Russia are already investing in novel sensing, reasoning, and learning technologies that will alter how militaries plan and fight. The resulting transformation could fundamentally change the character of war.

From the New York Times-bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong—himself a world-class geometer—a far-ranging exploration of the power of geometry, which turns out to help us think better about practically everything How should a democracy choose its representatives? How can you stop a...

Based on secret files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the new edition includes accounts of seven of the most important USAF inquiries - among them the story of the nights the White House was buzzed by UFOs, the mystery of the Lubbock Lights, the full story of Captain Mantell, Ufology's first martyr, and the startling conversion of the prominent astronomer J. Allen Hynek from UFO skeptic to believer. This startling and fascinating book uncovers not only the anatomy of a government cover-up but also provides stark and chilling evidence that we are not alone.

“Full of fascinating insights drawn from an impressive range of disciplines, The Ascent of Information casts the familiar and the foreign in a dramatic new light.” —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe Your information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it...

In an era dominated by digital technology, we have long assumed that our devices—smartphones, computers, and networks—operate on the solid ground of classical physics. Yet the truth is far more profound: modern microelectronics has always rested on quantum foundations. Boris Kriger reveals how quantum mechanics quietly shaped the transistor from its inception, how effects like tunneling, interference, and decoherence were not later intrusions but essential enablers of function.

The workplace is changing fast. AI won't replace you — but someone using AI might. ChatGPT for Work Beginners shows you how to use ChatGPT as a daily productivity assistant to write better emails, analyze information faster, eliminate repetitive tasks, and become more valuable at your job — even if you're not technical.

An indispensable guide helping parents to understand and recognise various forms of anxiety and how to empower their children in developing adaptive coping strategies. An indispensable guide that empowers parents to understand and recognise anxiety in their children, and to help them to develop...

In this fascinating account, cultural historian Kathy Peiss reveals how book and document collecting became part of the new apparatus of intelligence and national security, military planning, and postwar reconstruction. Focusing on the ordinary Americans who carried out these missions, she shows how they made decisions on the ground to acquire sources that would be useful in the war zone as well as on the home front.