+

The Information: A History,

A Theory, A Flood

Chapter 1:

Drums That Talk

(When a Code Is Not a Code)

+Communication Methods in Ancient

Times

Drummers in sub-Saharan Africa used drums as a means to communicate to villages

Drums, along with bugles and bells could transmit signals such as: Attack, retreat, or come to church

In special cases, drums could also be used to summon help from neighboring towns

Captain William Allen noted that the sound of military trumpets could not carry messages long distances, but the thump of a drum could carry six or seven miles.

Relayed village to village messages could rumble 100+ miles in an hour

+Communication Methods in Ancient

Times

Drums

Almost anyone could understand the message in the drumbeats, but only a few of them learned how to communicate by drum

Fire Beacons

Used by the Greeks

Was able to transmit messages longer distances than drums

Other Methods

Flags

Intermittent smoke

Flashing mirrors

Discovery of Magnetism

Rumors of magnetic needles

+The Idea of “Sympathetic” Needles

Method of communication

The idea was that if a pair of needles were magnetized

together, they would remain in sympathy from then on, even

when separated

Browne tried the experiment, but unfortunately it did not work

Browne still believes that this mysterious force could someday

be used for communication

+Morse Code

At first it was a system of signs for letters, marked by a quick succession of strokes

Samuel F. B. Morse claimed the idea of his first telegraph patent in 1840

Vail, Morse’s protégé, and Morse turned the idea from a coded alphabet to the system of two elements, one of clicks (now dots) and spaces in between. They added a third sign, the dash.

He wanted to be efficient in speed so Morse and Vail reserved short sequences of dots and dashes for common letters

Vail went to a newspaper stand and found that E and T were very common letters. So they changed T to a single dash saving the telegraph operators billions of key taps in the future.

+Morse Principle

+Mapping the Spoken Language

+Redundancy

Inefficient by definition

Every natural

language has

redundancy

Redundancy in

English allows us to

read this sentence

The phrase was used

to advertise shorthand

writing

Created by James Merrill

+Measurement of Redundancy

Mathematical formula for understanding the measurement of

redundancy: H = nlogs

Symbols used to measure the redundancy in language:

Words

Phonemes

Dots / dashes

The less symbols available -> increased the amount

transmitted to relay information

Hartley believed sound was the more important way for

communication

+Participants

Slide Makers:

Jon Eggers

Jee Kim

Taylor Seybold

Erich Marlowe

James Hopkins

Milton Ramer

Owen Steepy

Parisse Wood

Courtenay Cronin

Presenters:

Danny Noyes

Taylor Rivera

Julian Brooks

Trevor Smith

Zach Bichard

Megan Hill