The Information. A History, A Theory, A Flood. April 12, 2011

James Gleick shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality - the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.

The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanished as soon as it was born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long misunderstood “talking drums” of Africa, James Gleick tells the story of information technologies that, he claims, changed the very nature of human consciousness.

He will explore where the age of information is taking us, swept along by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets.

James Gleick worked for ten years as an editor and reporter for The New York Times. He is the bestselling author of Chaos, Genius, Faster, What Just Happened and a biography of Isaac Newton. His first book, Chaos, a National Book Award finalist, has been translated into twenty-five languages. His best-selling biographies, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton, were short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book, The Information, was seven years in the making. James Gleick divides his time between New York and Florida.

Admission free. Doors will open at 6.20pm and seats will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

This event will be broadcast live on the web at http://royalsociety.org/live and available to view on demand within 48 hours of delivery at our video archive, http://royalsociety.tv

Official Website: http://royalsociety.org/events/the-information/