James Gleick is an acclaimed science writer who first came to prominence in the late 1980s with Chaos: Making a New Science his groundbreaking work chronicling the development of chaos theory.

Now comes The Information; A History; A Theory A Flood. The new book expertly charts the evolution of the language of communication from the talking drum to the personal computer.

In Discovery Colin Grant talks to James Gleick about the ideas that have been illuminated in The Information.

Several pioneering figures are thrown up in Gleick's account, including Ada Byron, regarded by some as the first computer programmer long before the birth of computers.

Charles Babbage the 19th Century inventor of an Analytical machine, is also a key player.

But at the heart of The Information is an examination of Information Theory which was first proposed by the mathematician Claude Shannon in 1948. Information Theory underpins all digital communication.

Grant discusses the lasting importance of Information Theory and the work of Shannon and his predecessors on the world of science.