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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Is all life made up of yes-no, heads-tails decisions? Is the computer, with its binary 0-1 "bits" of information, our best model yet for describing the universe?

Acclaimed science writer Tom Siegfried offers a fascinating introduction to the hot new physics of information. The book takes us on a thrilling journey from quantum teleportation, to DNA computing, to the insides of black holes and other cosmological puzzles. Siegfried interviews top scientists-biologists working with the mathematics of DNA, quantum physicists studying quantum cryptography, and neuroscientists mapping the mysterious workings of the brain-all using the mysteries of information science to solve the seemingly unsolvable. Lively, engaging, and topical, The Bit and the Pendulum shows how the computer and the "bit" are revealing secrets of the brain, the nature of matter, and the workings of the universe.

(Extracted from the back cover).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.
-Preface.

-Introduction.

-I. Beam Up the Goulash.

-II. Machines and Metaphors.

-III. Information Is Physical.

-IV. The Quantum and the Computer.

-V. The Computational Cells.

-VI. The Computational Brain.

-VII. Consciousness and Complexity.

-VIII. IGUSes.

-IX. Quantum Reality.

-X. From Black Holes to Supermatter.

-XI. The Magical Mystery Theory.

-XII. The Bit and the Pendulum.

-Notes.

-Glossary.

-Further Reading.

-Index.