James Gleick

“It turns out that even simple equations can have such complicated behaviour that, in practice, it’s impossible to predict the outcome, which is described as ‘chaotic’.” Read more...

The best books on The Universe

Pedro G Ferreira, Physicist

“This was one of the first books that I read when I began thinking about these ideas of fast and slow, speed and deceleration. It’s a funny kind of book, descriptive and not prescriptive. There’s an undercurrent of disapproval of this acceleration, but it feels more like a scientific cataloguing of all the manifestations of our fast culture. How long people are prepared to wait on hold on a phone before they hang up, or for the doors to close in elevators – that kind of thing. The book itself is a bit breathless, and it consolidated my feelings that everything was speeding up, with diminishing returns and to the point of absurdity.” Read more...

The best books on Slow Living

Carl Honoré, Broadcaster

“It’s a very large book, in which he tries – and succeeds in many ways I think – to tell the story of information in human history. Information breaks down into two different things in essence. On the one hand it is messages – things with meaning to human beings – and on the other hand it is an abstract good without meaning which we have begun to industrialise, by which I mean figure out how to get more information across a distance more quickly and efficiently…That becomes, in the end, one of Gleick’s main thrusts – that information is no longer simply meaning, it has become a commodity. While the story that The Information tells is a celebration of human ingenuity, it also leaves you with the question of whether, by industrialising information, we may be sacrificing the richness of meaning and expression that can’t be measured in terms of efficiency and productivity. So the book ends on an ambivalent note.” Read more...

The best books on Impact of the Information Age

Nicholas Carr, Science Writer