Documentary Review (The History of Information)
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ScribdTranslationsDocumentary Review (The History of Information)
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ScribdTranslationsThe History of Information
September 26, 2018
Information is a fundamental concept that governs the aspects of the physical universe.
and "understanding it and using it has been an extremely long and difficult process" (The History
..., 2012). Since the creation of written word, a revolutionary technology that has greatly
contributed to the establishment and spreading of laws and to the expansion of trade relations
in the early societies, the multifrontiers of communication have been broken.
But not only that, the number of changes that have occurred in communication in recent
Three hundred years continues to change the way information is viewed.
The documentary 'The History of Information', written and directed by Nic Stacey,
presented by Professor Jim Al-Khalili, and produced by the BBC, addresses and inter-
links concepts of information and entropy with great mastery and intelligence, exemplifies -
including the evolutions of writing on the globe, the way humanity, in a great leap,
began to dominate transmission and storage techniques, and exposing the inventions that
were able to reduce a wide range of information to simple codes, which will go from
from the first alphabet created to the modern digital age.
In the first contact, the viewer is introduced to the context of the emergence
from the written word, where clay tablets were used for the engraving of symbols
graphic by the sounds they represented, and allowed, with that, the duration of
ideas through the centuries. With this invention, the Sumerian people of ancient Mesopotamia,
I had discovered that information could be modified in various ways,
in which "all types of manifestation of the human soul would be fixed forever in the ar-
crazy" (The History ..., 2012).
Writing was the only information technology existing in the world, however, the
Starting in the 18th century, things began to change. By the end of the 18th century, under the
In the era of the Industrial Revolution, a new kind of information technology was created.
in the city of Lyon, France, home to some of the best artisans in the world. This creation
it was the weaving process, invention of the French mechanic Joseph-Marie Jacquard, where
punched cards were used to weave patterns in a programmed way, showing
that one can take the essence of something, extract the vital information and represent it in another
form" (The History ..., 2012).
Then, already at the end of the 19th century, the speed at which information was trans-
life changed drastically due to electricity. The telegraph, invented by Samuel
Morse gave a new meaning to the processing and transmission of information through
from their alphabet of beeps, the telegraphic codes, making them faster than ever.
Soon, the telegraph spread across the world and propelled society.
through this new absorption of information – through zeros and ones.
Amidst an enigma about the movement of molecules and the creation of order ex-
posted by physicist James Clerk Maxwell, a riddle that would take more than 100 years to
to be solved, the first steps for the creation of the first computer were being taken. The
mathematician Alan Turing, whose studies served as the foundation for most electronics
already created, "I wanted to understand if certain processes in mathematics could be done if they followed-
with just a set of rules" (The History ..., 2012). If machines could...
understand instructions in the same way that the human brain does, they would be able to exe-
cut tasks and eliminate the human part of this system. Turing brought to society its
computational algorithms and marked the birth of the great Era of Computers.
However, the true power of information had not yet been revealed. Still in the...
the XX century, the studies of the mathematician Claude Shannon, considered the father of Information Theory.
training revealed to society 'new visions about human language' (History
..., 2012). Shannon, who worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories, explained the problem
in communication in a quantitative way: the basic unit of information is a situation
of 'yes or no' – and that it could be expressed through binary digits, by means of
two numbers 1 and 0, today, the bit, a characteristic system of every existing computer.
It is understood, with all these processes and studies, that information is not only
important for the effectiveness of human communication, as well as for understanding
of many aspects of reality. The documentary clearly highlights the importance of
the study of information, from its storage in clay tablets to its use-
utilization of light and electricity to optimize communication. But not only that, "The
The "History of Information" also emphasizes the value of the evolution and maintenance of means.
of communication, making them, therefore, as already mentioned in the study of Marshall McLuhan, the
the human being's own extensions.
References
ORDER & DISORDER
London (EN), 2012.
