Information

Information is the central subject of "The Information" and it is shown to have a wide-ranging meaning. In the way that information is defined by pioneer information theorist Claude Shannon, information is not the same as meaning. The meaning of a message is separate from the letters or coded signals used to transmit it. Shannon reduced information to its pure signals and developed the concept of a basic unit of information called the bit.

Difference Engine

This is an invention of Charles Babbage that used mechanical wheels, gears, and levers to calculate logarithms.

Analytical Engine

This is a more complex version of Babbage's difference engine that was meant to perform more complex functions. Babbage never built the machine.

Turing Machine

This is an imaginary machine theorized by Alan Turing that processed information based on a set of simple operations and a table of instructions. A theoretical version...