Information

What is information? Information can be defined as “a message received and understood” or “knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction”. It can also be defined as “a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn” (Reference: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). All these definitions are right. These are the meanings we use today, however in the medieval times, they defined information as ‘an act of performing’

The telegraph and telephone

The telegraph and telephone are both means of communication. They help people communicate over distances. For example, from one country to another. Communication, especially in today’s world is very important in terms of the economy as well as the society as a whole. Both the telegraph and telephone have made communication a lot faster and easier. Due to this we have been able to develop and become more technologically advanced.
Communication before the telegraph and telephone were invented was very difficult and primitive. They relied on word to mouth communication. They also had the postal services, however these were very slow an expensive. Some of the letters and messages were lost or stolen on the way and thus never reached their destination.
Later on when people started migrating to the west, communication had to increase. Messages were sent through the railroads but they took about four months to reach and thus had to be improved. Due to the messages taking so long to reach many misunderstandings between people and countries were caused. This is when in 1832 Samuel Morse came into the picture. He invented the Morse code and the telegraph. This telegraph than improved with time and was called the duplex telegraph. It could send more than one message in the same direction at the same time. Cables were then invented and allowed communication to take place between different countries. (International communication) These cables were placed under the ocean.
The telegraph made communication faster and cheaper. It also created jobs especially for women. However it also made some people lose their jobs and, only trained people could send messages through the telegraph. People were satisfied with the telegraph but now needed an easier and even faster way to communicate and this is how the telephone was invented.
In 1860, Reis a German man invented a machine that carried sound through distance. However, this machine was not given enough attention at this time. This is when Elisha Gray and Alexandra Graham Bell came into the picture. Fifteen years later in America they were both working on the telephone. Out of the two however, Graham Bell was the one credited for the invention of the telephone.
The telephone however had various problems in its function, such as long distance calls could not be made as the amplification was not enough. But with time the amplifiers were improved and long distance calls became possible to make. The telephone then started being used by everyone and became popular to own. It was fast and inexpensive. (Reference: http://asms.k12.ar.us/classes/humanities/amstud/97-98/telecom/telephone_and_telegraph.html (3rd march 2010)

Entropy

Entropy has many definitions to it considering the concept it is being used in. in this case ‘it refers to when there is little information in a message’. For example, the use of codes. You could say that entropy is a measure of disorder and it means turning or transformation.

Thermodynamics

This is the movement of heat. There are two laws of thermodynamics. The first is called ‘conservation’ and it states that “energy can be changed from onr form to another, but it can not be created or destroyed” (Reference: www.emc.mricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookEnerl.html ( last modified on Wednesday 6th June 2007)).
The second law states that “in all energy exchange, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state” (Reference: www.emc.mricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookEnerl.html ( last modified on Wednesday 6th June 2007)). This is known as entropy. Entropy is said to be a measure of disorder. “Entropy wins when organisms cease to take in energy and die”. (Reference: www.emc.mricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookEnerl.html ( last modified on Wednesday 6th June 2007)). Both these laws were invented by Rudolf Clausius. (1822-1888)

Cybernetics

Cybernetics has been named by Norbert Wiener (1894-1964). Norbert had written a book named ‘Cybernetics’ in 1948.

Flyball governer

“A flyball governor is a device used to regulate the speed of steam turbines in steam power plants. The rotation of the shaft causes the two balls move outward. As the balls move out, they pull on the bearing A. The position of the slider A is linked to a valve admitting steam into the turbine. This way, the flow of speed is automatically restricted when the shaft starts rotating too fast.” (Reference: physorg.com- August 2nd 2008)

Negentropy

This is the opposite of entropy. “A non-recommendable near synonym for information. The term has created considerable confusion suggesting that information processes negate the second law of thermodynamics by producing order from chaos. The history of the confusion stems from the mere formal analogy between Boltzmann's thermodynamic expression for entropy” (Reference: web dictionary)