BRILLOUIN AND THE CONCEPT OF INFORMATION
Thomas B. Fowler · International Journal of General Systems · 1983
The development of the concept of information as a physical quantity governed by laws and connected with other physical quantities has been carried out largely by L, Brillouin. However. Brillouin's work suffers from confusion on some very critical matters, which leads to attempts to answer meaningless or irrelevant questions. By clarifying the notion of information as a physical quantity characteristic of systems and giving it a strict operational definition, the paradoxes and meaningless questions can be resolved or eliminated, and attention focused on ihe important scientific issues connected with information so that progress can then be made unhampered by irrelevant questions of an episie mo logical or metaphysical nature. A notable clarification of the function of computing systems in particular is realized.