"The story begins at the turn of the previous century, with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book and an international sensation: The Time Machine. It was an era when a host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological: the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks....

James Gleick brings us a revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era's defining quality - the blood. the fuel, the vital principle of our world.

In this biography, Gleick moves between a comprehensive historical portrait and a dramatic focus on Newton's significant letters and unpublished notebooks to illuminate the real importance of his work in physics, in optics, and in calculus.

Contains essays that offer glimpes of new realms of discovery and thought in territories unfamiliar to most or finding the unexpected in the familiar. Visit the Bern patent office as Einstein formulates his theory of special relativity, or split second decisions in a hospital emergency room.