James Gleick, the author of the bestsellers Chaos and Genius, brings us his crowning work: a revelatory chronicle that shows how information has become the modern era's defining quality--the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world. The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanished as soon as it was born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long misunderstood "talking drums" of Africa, James Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the poet's brilliant and doomed daughter, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. An then the information age comes upon us. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And they sometimes feel they are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading. It will transform readers' view of its subject. James Gleick is our leading chronicler of science and modern technology. His first book, Chaos, a National Book Award finalist, has been translated into twenty-five languages. His best-selling biographies, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton, were short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize. The Information was seven years in the making. Gleick divides his time between New York and Florida.

Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Gleick, James

Reference

Fourth Estate

“A time-jumping, head-tripping odyssey.” —The Millions “A bracing swim in the waters of science, technology and fiction.” —Washington Post “A thrilling journey of ideas.” —Boston GlobeFrom the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, here is a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself. The story begins at the turn of the previous century, with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book and an international sensation: The Time Machine. It was an era when a host of forces was converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological: the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. James Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea that becomes part of contemporary culture—from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Jorge Luis Borges to Woody Allen. He investigates the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. Finally, he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future.(With a color frontispiece and black-and-white illustrations throughout) 

Time Travel

HARPER/COLLINS

The first volume in this annual series of the best science writing by Americans -- meticulously selected by bestselling author James Gleick, one of our foremost chroniclers of scientific social history debuts with a stellar collection of writers and thinkers. Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg bracingly challenges the idea that the universe has a designer; Pulitzer Prize winner Natalie Angier reassesses caveman (and cavewoman) couture; bestselling author and Darwinian theorist Stephen Jay Gould makes a claim for the man whose ideas Darwin discredited; mathematician and cognitive theorist Douglas R. Hofstadter explores the thought patterns that make the human mind unique; Timothy Ferris proposes a realistic alternative to warp-speed intersteller travel; neurologist and bestselling author Oliver Sacks reminisces about his first loves -- chemistry and math. The Best American Science Writing 2000 covers the full range of scientific inquiry -- from biochemistry, physics, and astronomy to genetics, evolutionary theory, cognition, and even ants.
Many of these cutting-edge essays offer glimpses of new realms of discovery and thought, exploring territory that is unfamiliar to most of us or finding the unexpected in the midst of the familiar. Harvard historian Peter Galison takes us into the Bern patent office as Einstein formulates his theory of special relativity; neural scientist Denis G. Pelli shows how Chuck Close's spellbinding portraits actually overturn conventional wisdom about how we see; the young surgeon Atul Gawande exposes the split-second decision making that goes on in hospital emergency rooms around the country. As James Gleick writes in the Introduction: "We need the news they're delivering. The more we read this year, the more we saw that our technocratic age requires urgent messages from the sometimes baffling, sometimes tumultuous frontier of knowledge." This diverse, stimulating, and accessible collection is required reading for anyone who wants to travel to that frontier.

The Best American Science Writing 2000 (The Best American Series)

Science & Math

Ecco

James Gleick has long been fascinated by the making of science -- how ideas order visible appearances, how equations can give meaning to molecular and stellar phenomena, how theories can transform what we see. In Chaos, he chronicled the emergence of a new way of looking at dynamic systems; in Genius, he portrayed the wondrous dimensions of Richard Feymnan's mind. Now, in Isaac Newton, he gives us the story of the scientist who, above all others, embodied humanity's quest to unveil the hidden forces that constitute the physical world.In this original, sweeping, and intimate biography, Gleick moves between a comprehensive historical portrait and a dramatic focus on Newton's significant letters and unpublished notebooks to illuminate the real importance of his work in physics, in optics, and in calculus. He makes us see the old intuitive, alchemical universe out of which Newton's mathematics first arose and shows us how Newton's ideas have altered all forms of understanding from history to philosophy. And he gives us a moving account of the conflicting impulses that pulled at this man's heart: his quiet longings, his rage, his secrecy, the extraordinary subtleties of a personality that were mirrored in the invisible forces he first identified as the building blocks of science. More than biography, more than history, more than science, Isaac Newton tells us how, through the mind of one man, we have come to know our place in the cosmos.Read by Allan Couruner.

Isaac Newton CD

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

HarperAudio

Explains the meaning and application of chaos--the study of patterns emerging from seemingly random phenomena--and introduces the scientists responsible for major discoveries in this field

Chaos: Making a New Science

History & Philosophy

Penguin??Books

The million-copy bestseller by National Book Award nominee and Pulitzer Prize finalist James Gleick—the author of Time Travel: A History—that reveals the science behind chaos theory A work of popular science in the tradition of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, this 20th-anniversary edition of James Gleick’s groundbreaking bestseller Chaos introduces a whole new readership to chaos theory, one of the most significant waves of scientific knowledge in our time. From Edward Lorenz’s discovery of the Butterfly Effect, to Mitchell Feigenbaum’s calculation of a universal constant, to Benoit Mandelbrot’s concept of fractals, which created a new geometry of nature, Gleick’s engaging narrative focuses on the key figures whose genius converged to chart an innovative direction for science. In Chaos, Gleick makes the story of chaos theory not only fascinating but also accessible to beginners, and opens our eyes to a surprising new view of the universe.

Isaac Newton

Historical

Vintage

“A time-jumping, head-tripping odyssey.” —The Millions “A bracing swim in the waters of science, technology and fiction.” —Washington Post “A thrilling journey of ideas.” —Boston Globe From the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, here is a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself. The story begins at the turn of the previous century, with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book and an international sensation: The Time Machine. It was an era when a host of forces was converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological: the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. James Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea that becomes part of contemporary culture—from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Jorge Luis Borges to Woody Allen. He investigates the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. Finally, he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future. (With a color frontispiece and black-and-white illustrations throughout)

Time Travel: A History

History

World

Pantheon

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 story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.
 From the Hardcover edition.

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Computers & Technology

Random House Audio |

The best-selling author of Faster and the acclaimed photographer explore the diverse patterns, harmonies, and interrelationships among the seeming disorder and wildness of nature. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Nature's Chaos

Arts & Photography

PORTER, Eliot

Photography & Video

Little,Brown

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gleick, James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gleick, James

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gleick, James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Time Travel

The Best American Science Writing 2000 (The Best American Series)

Isaac Newton CD

Chaos: Making a New Science

Chaos: Making a New Science

Isaac Newton

Time Travel: A History

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Nature's Chaos