In New York, for a short time only, a beautiful exhibition devoted to the birth of mathematics on cuneiform tablets in ancient Babylon, a millennium before the Greeks. I touch on this story in The Information: how this first mathematical flowering vanished into the sands, only to be rediscovered in modern times. The pioneering scholar Otto Neugebauer said in 1949: Our task can properly be...
I know what you’re wondering, and no, Faster is not based on my book, and I was not consulted. This should have been a dead giveaway:
I am in Dear Book Lover. (The question, not the answer.)
Chaos: Making a New Science (Viking 1987) “An awe-inspiring book. Reading it gave me that sensation that someone had just found the light switch.” —Douglas Adams “This is a stunning work, a deeply exciting subject in the hands of a first-rate science writer. The implications of the research James Gleick sets forth are breathtaking.” —Barry Lopez Enhanced e-book available...
“So ambitious, illuminating and sexily theoretical that it will amount to aspirational reading for many of those who have the mettle to tackle it. Don’t make the mistake of reading it quickly. Imagine luxuriating on a Wi-Fi-equipped desert island with Mr. Gleick’s book, a search engine and no distractions. The Information is to the nature, history and significance of data what the beach is...
When 21st-century historians look back at the breakdown of the United States patent system, they will see a turning point in the case of Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com and their special invention: “The patented One Click® feature."
[grey_box]First published in the New York Times Magazine, July 9, 1995[/grey_box] WHERE HUMAN ANATOMY meets data processing, there are just two important devices: the brain and the wristwatch. The brain is nice, but it doesn’t tell time very well. So, creatures of habit that we are, we strap on that extra thing—a machine worn every day by most adults in the industrialized world to display a...
[grey_box] First published in the New Republic, May 24, 1994. [/grey_box] [dropcap]In the world of professional wrestling, fans fall into two categories, known as the Smarts and the Marks. The Marks believe that they are watching spontaneous contests of strength and skill. The Smarts know that they are watching a fascinating, highly plotted, roughly scripted form of dramatic entertainment–a...