Synopsis
From the well-known science commentator and bestselling author of Fuzzy Thinking comes a revelatory look at the phenomenon of noise
A celebrated maverick in the world of science, Bart Kosko introduced—and continues to popularize in print and television media—the revolutionary concept of fuzzy logic. In his latest book, he provides the first scientific history of noise aimed at the general reader.
Noise is a social nuisance, a cause of deafness and high blood pressure, and an all-around annoyance. But what is noise really? As Kosko simply states, “Noise is a signal that you don't like.” It occurs at every level of the physical universe, from the big bang to blaring car alarms. Today, noise is considered the curse of the information age, but, in fact, not all noise is bad. Debunking this and many other commonly held beliefs about noise, Kosko gives readers a vivid sense of how deeply noise permeates both the world around us and within us. Along the way he covers many compelling topics, from noise's possible role in the ice ages to noise pollution laws, the use of noise to generate synthetic speech, and Hedy Lamarr's contribution to noisy wireless communication. The result is a vastly entertaining and illuminating scientific journey that promises to do for noise what James Gleick did for chaos—make it vital, fascinating, and relevant.
Kirkus Reviews
What's bad and-surprise-what's good about noise, explicated by fuzzy-logic/neural-network doyen Kosko (Fuzzy Thinking, 1993; The Fuzzy Future, 1999). He begins with the bad: Noise as damager to hearing, trigger of stress and causer of birds and whales to change their tunes. He even provides chapter and verse on the laws governing public nuisance and trespass and proposes that cities generate noise maps in steps toward prevention. Then comes an exegesis on information theory, launched by Claude Shannon's 1948Heady reading from a polymath popularizer, but exhilarating nonetheless.