39 James Gleick Quotes for You to Enjoy

James Gleick

American Author

Born: Aug 1, 1954

Every People Think Time Will You

Related authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald Frederick Douglass Helen Keller Henry David Thoreau Joyce Meyer Mark Twain Og Mandino Zig Ziglar

Information theory began as a bridge from mathematics to electrical engineering and from there to computing. James Gleick

Mathematics Engineering Computing Began Information Electrical Theory Bridge

For much of the twentieth century, 1984 was a year that belonged to the future - a strange, gray future at that. Then it slid painlessly into the past, like any other year. Big Brother arrived and settled in, though not at all in the way George Orwell had imagined. James Gleick

Future Strange Big Year Past Other Settled Way Though Brother Had Like Big Brother Arrived George George Orwell Any Century Then Much Twentieth Twentieth Century Gray Orwell Belonged Imagined

Type 'What is th' and faster than you can find the 'e' Google is sending choices back at you: 'What is the cloud?' 'What is the mean?' 'What is the American dream?' 'What is the illuminati?' Google is trying to read your mind. Only it's not your mind. It's the World Brain. James Gleick

It's important with any new technology to try to pay conscious attention to what the drawbacks might be. We choose to multitask. Sometimes our choices aren't the wisest of choices, and we regret them, but they are our choices. I think it'd be wrong to think that they're automatically bad. James Gleick

Technology Regret Sometimes Try Important Pay Think Our Drawbacks Bad Wrong Attention Wisest New New Technology Any Automatically Them Might Choices Choose Multitask Conscious

Information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. Reading - even browsing - an old book can yield sustenance denied by a database search. Patience is a virtue, gluttony a sin. James Gleick

Wisdom Knowledge Patience Book Old Reading Virtue Database Sin Gluttony Denied Yield Sustenance Information Search Even

As for memes, the word 'meme' is a cliche, which is to say it's already a meme. We all hear it all the time, and maybe we even have started to use it in ordinary speech. The man who invented it was Richard Dawkins, who was, not coincidentally, an evolutionary biologist. And he invented it as an analog for the gene. James Gleick

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. James Gleick

Needs Technology Book Will Every Suited Tool Say Thousand Guns Varied Perfect Pound Never Nail Nails Obsolete Like Ideally Household Builders Go Hammer Task Even

Basic dictionaries no longer belong on paper; the greatest, the 'Oxford English Dictionary,' has nimbly remade itself in cyberspace, where it has doubled in size and grown more timely and usable than ever. James Gleick

Patent battles have become a strong catalyst for mergers, reducing competition in various domains. The largest corporations, with gigantic patent portfolios, routinely enter into cross-licensing agreements with their largest competitors. James Gleick

Competition Strong Become Corporations Enter Battles Gigantic Various Catalyst Mergers Reducing Domains Patent Agreements Largest Portfolio Competitors

A bit, the smallest unit of information, the fundamental particle of information theory, is a choice, yes or no, on or off. It's a choice that you can embody in electrical circuits, and it is thanks to that that we have all this ubiquitous computing. James Gleick

You Thanks Bit Embody Computing Smallest Particle Off Yes Information Choice Electrical Theory Unit Fundamental

Despite the metadata attached to each tweet, and despite trails of retweets and 'favorite' tweets, the Twitter corpus lacks the latticework of hyperlinks that makes Google's algorithms so potent. Twitter's famous hashtags - #sandyhook or #fiscalcliff or #girls - are the crudest sort of signposts, not much help for smart searching. James Gleick

Genes themselves are made of bits. James Gleick

Made Bits Genes Themselves

I take the view that we all have permission to be a little baffled by quantum information science and algorithmic information theory. James Gleick

Science Take Baffled Quantum Permission Information Little View Theory

It is seldom right to say that anything is true 'according to Google.' Google is the oracle of redirection. Go there for 'hamadryad,' and it points you to Wikipedia. Or the Free Online Dictionary. Or the Official Hamadryad Web Site (it's a rock band, too, wouldn't you know). James Gleick

You Free Google Band Too Wikipedia Say Web Web Site Online Seldom Points True Know Rock Rock Band Go According Dictionary Oracle Official Site Anything Right

I'm trying to look at many, many things in modern life that I believe are going faster, and I'm trying to look at why they're going faster and what effect they have on us. We all know about FedEx and instant pudding, but it doesn't mean we've looked at all the consequences of our desire for speed. James Gleick

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 wouldn't necessarily be good. James Gleick

Good Change People Complaining Thought Too Books Philosophy Press Ways Soon Course Printing Printing Press Were Going Human Europe Many Flooding Human Thought Necessarily Started

The word 'code' turns out to be a really important word for my book, 'The Information.' The genetic code is just one example. We talk now about coders, coding. Computer guys are coders. The stuff they write is code. James Gleick

Alphabetical order had to be invented to help people organize the first dictionaries. On the other hand, we may have reached a point where alphabetical order has gone obsolete. Wikipedia is ostensibly in alphabetical order, but, when you think about it, it's not in any order at all. You use a search engine to get into it. James Gleick

You People First Gone Think Other Wikipedia About Invented Point Had Obsolete Reached Alphabet Hand Dictionaries Get Any May Where Order Use Engine Organize Help Help People Search Search Engine

We have a habit of turning to scientists when we want factual answers and artists when we want entertainment, but where are the facts about the nature of the self? Neurologists peering at PET scans and fMRIs know they aren't seeing the soul in there. James Gleick

Nature Entertainment Soul Pet Seeing About Habit Facts Factual Self Know Answers Scientists Artists Where Want Turning

The cells of an organism are nodes in a richly interwoven communications network, transmitting and receiving, coding and decoding. Evolution itself embodies an ongoing exchange of information between organism and environment. James Gleick

Interwoven Evolution Embodies Ongoing Network Exchange Environment Between Itself Cells Information Communications Organism Transmitting Coding Receiving

Information is crucial to our biological substance - our genetic code is information. But before 1950, it was not obvious that inheritance had anything to do with code. And it was only after the invention of the telegraph that we understood that our nerves carry messages, just like wires. James Gleick

Invention Before Our Telegraph Carry Nerves Only Crucial Had Wires Genetic Like Obvious Messages Understood Just Substance After Anything Information Inheritance Code Biological

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