Back to Basics: Bits and Pieces

Abstract

The concept of information is so ubiquitous nowadays that it is simply unavoidable. It has revolutionized the way we perceive the world, and for someone not to know that we live in the information age would make you wonder where they’ve been for the last 30 years. In this information age we are no longer grappling with steam engines or locomotives; we are now grappling with understanding and improving our information processing abilities – to develop faster computers, more efficient ways to communicate across ever vaster distances, more balanced financial markets, and more efficient societies. A common misconception is that the information age is just technological. Well let me tell you once and for all that it is not! The information age at its heart is about affecting and better understanding just about any process Nature throws at us: physical, biological, sociological, whatever you name it – nothing escapes. Even though many would accept that we live in the age of information, surprisingly the concept of information itself is still often not well understood. In order to see why this is so, it’s perhaps worth reflecting a little on the age that preceded it, the industrial age. Central concepts within the industrial age, which can be said to have begun in the early eighteenth century in the north of England, were work and heat. People have, to date, found these concepts and their applicability much more intuitive and easier to grasp than the equivalent role information plays in the information age. In the industrial age, the useful application of work and heat was largely evident through the resulting machinery, the type of engineering, buildings, ships, trains, etc. It was easy to point your finger and say ‘look, this is a sign of the industrial age’. In Leeds, for example, as I used to take my usual walk down Foundry Street in the area called Holbeck, traces of the industrial revolution were still quite evident. John Marshall’s Temple Mills and Matthew Murray’s Round Foundry are particularly striking examples; grand imposing buildings demanding respect and appreciation for the hundreds of people who worked in squalid conditions and around the clock to ensure that the country remained well fed, clothed, or transported.