Cambridge, United Kingdom

Mathematics of Information

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: mathematics and statistics
University website: www.cam.ac.uk
Information
Information is any entity or form that provides the answer to a question of some kind or resolves uncertainty. It is thus related to data and knowledge, as data represents values attributed to parameters, and knowledge signifies understanding of real things or abstract concepts. As it regards data, the information's existence is not necessarily coupled to an observer (it exists beyond an event horizon, for example), while in the case of knowledge, the information requires a cognitive observer.
Mathematics
Mathematics (from Greek μάθημα máthēma, "knowledge, study, learning") is the study of such topics as quantity, structure, space, and change. It has no generally accepted definition.
Mathematics
“It’s magic,” the chief cook concluded, in awe.
“No, not magic,” the ship’s doctor replied. “It’s much more. It’s mathematics.”
David Brin, Glory Season (1993), chapter 24
Information
When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929), American Science Fiction author. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ch. 3 (1969).
Mathematics
I united the majority of well-informed persons into a club, which we called by the name of the Junto, and the object of which was to improve our understandings. ... The first members of our club were...
Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, and afterwards inventor of what is now called Hadley's dial; but he had little knowledge out of his own line, and was insupportable in company, always requiring, like the majority of mathematicians that have fallen in my way, an unusual precision in everything that is said, continually contradicting, or making trifling distinctions—a sure way of defeating all the ends of conversation. He very soon left us.
Benjamin Franklin, The Life and Miscellaneous Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1839)
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