In search of certainty : the science of our information infrastructure / Mark Burgess.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burgess, Mark, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Technology--Social aspects.

Technology.

Information technology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (473 p.)

Edition:

Second edition, revised & updated.

Other Title:

Science of our information infrastructure

Place of Publication:

Sebastopol, California : O'Reilly, 2015.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Quite soon, the world's information infrastructure is going to reach a level of scale and complexity that will force scientists and engineers to approach it in an entirely new way. The familiar notions of command and control are being thwarted by realities of a faster, denser world of communication where choice, variety, and indeterminism rule. The myth of the machine that does exactly what we tell it has come to an end. What makes us think we can rely on all this technology? What keeps it together today, and how might it work tomorrow? Will we know how to build the next generation-or will w

Contents:

Part I: stability : or how we base technology on science

King Canute and the butterfly : how we create the illusion of being in control

Feedback patterns and thresholds : how the relative sizes of things govern our behaviour

Digilogy: cause, effect, and information : how transmitted information shapes the world from the bottom up

All the roads to nowhere : how keeping things in balance is the essence of control

Zero and the building blocks of Babel : how to forge the atoms of reliable infrastructure

Part II: certainty : living with incomplete information

Keeping it together by pulling it apart : how weak coupling strengthened human infrastructure

Seeing is disbelieving : how to explain what we see and make use of it

The equilibrium of knowing or how not to disagree with yourself

Clockwork uncertainty : the arms race between reason and complexity

Part III: promises : the chemistry of autonomous cooperation

The concept of promises : or why behaviour comes from within

The human condition : how humans make friends to solve problems

Molecular and material infrastructure : elastic, plastic and brittle design

Orchestration and creative instability : or why the conductor does not promise to blow every trumpet.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed May 9, 2015).

ISBN:

9781491923368

1491923369

9781491923337

1491923334

9781491923375

1491923377

OCLC:

909425996