Most importantly, these thinkers refined the very definition of information, purifying the concept just as earlier generations of scientists had purified the meaning of "mass" and "energy". But whereas the crisp new definitions of mass and energy restricted the words' use to technical contexts, information's new definition, one based on bits and entropy (I = -∑pi log2 pi, to be precise) widened its applicability. Information theory soon colonised economics, genetics, thermodynamics and other fields. Today some physicists even argue that information is more fundamental than both mass and energy - that it may be the very bedrock of reality.New Scientist has the review
James Gleick's The Information
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