Every new medium transforms the nature of human thought. In the long run, history is the story of information becoming aware of itself. James Gleick More Quotes by James Gleick More Quotes From James Gleick Vengeful conquerors burn books as if the enemy's souls reside there, too. James Gleick soul book enemy "Half genius and half buffoon," Freeman Dyson ... wrote. ... [Richard] Feynman struck him as uproariously American-unbuttoned and burning with physical energy. It took him a while to realize how obsessively his new friend was tunneling into the very bedrock of modern science. James Gleick richard-feynman energy science Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace. James Gleick patterns care lying It sometimes seems as if curbing entropy is our quixotic purpose in this universe. James Gleick quixotic purpose sometimes For [Richard] Feynman, the essence of the scientific imagination was a powerful and almost painful rule. What scientists create must match reality. It must match what is already known. Scientific creativity is imagination in a straitjacket. James Gleick creativity powerful knowledge Writing comes into being to retain information across time and across space. Before writing, communication is evanescent and local; sounds carry a few yards and fade to oblivion. The evanescence of the spoken word went without saying. So fleeting was speech that the rare phenomenon of the echo, a sound heard once and then again, seemed a sort of magic. James Gleick echoes communication writing Tiny differences in input could quickly become overwhelming differences in output.... In weather, for example, this translates into what is only half-jokingly known as the Butter- fly Effect—the notion that a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York. James Gleick butterfly new-york air When the Lilliputians first saw Gulliver's watch, that "wonderful kind of engine...a globe, half silver and half of some transparent metal," they identified it immediately as the god he worshiped. After all, "he seldom did anything without consulting it: he called it his oracle, and said it pointed out the time for every action in his life." To Jonathan Swift in 1726 that was worth a bit of satire. Modernity was under way. We're all Gullivers now. Or are we Yahoos? James Gleick gulliver watches firsts Neither technology nor efficiency can acquire more time for you, because time is not a thing you have lost. It is not a thing you ever had. James Gleick efficiency technology time Children and scientists share an outlook on life. If I do this, what will happen? is both the motto of the child at play and the defining refrain of the physical scientist. ... The unfamiliar and the strange - these are the domain of all children and scientists. James Gleick outlook-on-life play children The alternative to doubt is authority, against which science had fought for centuries. James Gleick alternatives authority doubt He believed in the primacy of doubt, not as a blemish upon our ability to know, but as the essence of knowing. James Gleick knowing essence doubt Intuition was not just visual but also auditory and kinesthetic. Those who watched Feynman in moments of intense concentration came away with a strong, even disturbing sense of the physicality of the process, as though his brain did not stop with the grey matter but extended through every muscle in his body. James Gleick grey-matter strong brain I can't remember the last book that taught me so much, and so well, about what it means to be human. James Gleick lasts mean book As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete. Even when builders pound nails by the thousand with pneumatic nail guns, every household needs a hammer. Likewise, the bicycle is alive and well. It was invented in a world without automobiles, and for speed and range it was quickly surpassed by motorcycles and all kinds of powered scooters. But there is nothing quaint about bicycles. They outsell cars. James Gleick technology gun book It is significant that one says book lover and music lover and art lover but not record lover or CD lover or, conversely, text lover. James Gleick cds book art We say that time passes, time goes by, and time flows. Those are metaphors. We also think of time as a medium in which we exist. James Gleick metaphor flow thinking At its most fundamental, information is a binary choice. In other words, a single bit of information is one yes-or-no choice. James Gleick information choices fundamentals As soon as the printing press started flooding Europe with books, people were complaining that there were too many books and that it was going to change philosophy and the course of human thought in ways that wouldnt necessarily be good. James Gleick europe philosophy book The Internet has taken shape with startlingly little planning? The most universal and indispensable network on the planet somehow burgeoned without so muchasa boardofdirectors, never minda mergers-and- acquisitions department. There is a paradoxical lesson here for strategists. In economic terms, the great corporations are acting like socialist planners, while old- fashioned free-market capitalism blossoms at their feet. James Gleick acting taken feet
