Information Science

This original, integrative book is a tour de force, unique in content and presentation. The author has achieved the goal that all academics should strive for: the ability to develop and explain complex ideas in the simplest way without compromising theory or being simplistic. -- Sharan Jagpal, Rutgers University

From cell phones to Web portals, advances in information and communications technology have thrust society into an information age that is far-reaching, fast-moving, increasingly complex, and yet essential to modern life. This text distills and explains the most important concepts and insights at the core of this revolution.From cell phones to Web portals, advances in information and communications technology have thrust society into an information age that is far-reaching, fast-moving, increasingly complex, and yet essential to modern life. Now, renowned scholar and author David Luenberger has produced Information Science, a text that distills and explains the most important concepts and insights at the core of this ongoing revolution. The book represents the material used in a widely acclaimed course offered at Stanford University. Drawing concepts from each of the constituent subfields that collectively comprise information science, Luenberger builds his book around the five "E's" of information: Entropy, Economics, Encryption, Extraction, and Emission. Each area directly impacts modern information products, services, and technology--everything from word processors to digital cash, database systems to decision making, marketing strategy to spread spectrum communication. To study these principles is to learn how English text, music, and pictures can be compressed, how it is possible to construct a digital signature that cannot simply be copied, how beautiful photographs can be sent from distant planets with a tiny battery, how communication networks expand, and how producers of information products can make a profit under difficult market conditions. The book contains vivid examples, illustrations, exercises, and points of historic interest, all of which bring to life the analytic methods presented: * Presents a unified approach to the field of information science * Emphasizes basic principles * Includes a wide range of examples and applications * Helps students develop important new skills * Suggests exercises with solutions in an instructor's manual