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______ Book of the Week: A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking (Bantam, 1998)
All of us will miss Stephen Hawking, one of the great iconic characters (and minds) in science, and most of our members likely have read this, his most famous book. The most remarkable aspect of the book and of Hawking himself is that he openly admits his prior mistakes in work on black holes. Ironically, what Hawking (and the book) did not achieve was a deeper understanding of time. On the other hand, one of the great achievements he left us was his insight into the century—old effort to understand the relationship between energy and information.
Energy vs. Information: If there is a single entity that is the most basic in the universe, it is Energy. Of all the laws in physics, the law of Conservation of Energy it cannot be made or destroyed is held above all others. At least, that's what a physicist will tell you. But if you ask a computer geek, she'll quickly tell you that the most basic entity in the universe is Information. Thanks to Stephen Hawking, who passed away last week, even black holes can now be mathematically described not just in terms of energy, but also in terms of information flow and capture. |
