Human beings begin getting organized into social structures approximately 10,000 years ago. The ability to survive depended on many things but the more information that you had the better. Information, however, requires a set of rules to define it so it can be intrepreted. We call this language .

Language, however, is a very complex concept. What is it exactly and why are there so many forms of it? Language requires syntax and convention and definition, whether or not its a computer language or a spoken language or a written language. Because language requires rules then it is governed by some kind of physics. Furthermore, language exists as a conduit through which information is transmitted, received and processed . In early times (7000 years ago or so), propogation of culture required a) an agreed upon set of rules and b) the ability to archive those rules. Therefore, cultural memory requires a written language. Advances in civilization in turn requires a communication network so that the rules can propogate. However, communication is quite often imprecise. For example, can uotranslate this cell phone syntax of text messaging?

Hey, work done, ADIH but I am AAS and IOH. CU @ *$

If you don't know the rules of the above language then the information that is being expressed then causes the parsing of the above expression to become fuzzy and in more extreme cases it just becomes. incoherent

The rapid propogation of coherent information is a difficult physical challenge and a large understanding of physics and the interactions between waves and matter must be understood before an efficient communications system can be fully developed

A brief history of Communications Networks From the Year Less than One to 1900: (Pay attention to key words coded in red).

• ???BC Smoke Signals reach beyond the spoken word.

  
  
  

• ???BC Drums are used as more information can be encoded than in Smoke Signals.

  
  
  

• 700BC Homing pigeons carry messages in ancient Greece. obviously introduces the latency problem!

  
  
  

• 1450 AD Gutenburg invents the printing press now information can be archived

  
  
  

• 1819 Hans C. Oersted discovers that a wire carrying an electric current deflected a magnetic needle, a discovery that would eventually lead to the creation of the telegraph.

  
  
  

• 1837 William F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone install the first railway telegraph in England.

  
  
  

• 1844 May 24th Samuel F.B. Morse demonstrated a magnetic telegraph using his Morse Code to send the message 'What hath God wrought' from Baltimore to Washington. now we have encryption

  
  
  

• 1858 August The first transatlantic cable is installed between Ireland and Canada. Unfortunately the signal was so weak and indistinguishable from background noise that it took hours to send a few words. The owners tried to fix the situation by boosting the voltage from 600 to 2000 volts, melting the cable's insulation and leaving it dead in the water. poor application of physics!

  
  
  

• 1860 April 3 The Pony Express opens for business, pledging to 'deliver the goods in 10 days or less'. Its first route carries mail between St. Joseph, Missouri and San Francisco, California. first example of a switched information network.

  
  
  

• 1861 October The last Pony Express run is made as the telegraph takes over. Communication Technologies can go away fast!

  
  
  

• 1876 March Alexander Graham Bell transmits the first message ever sent by telephone: Mr. Watson, come here, I want you to his assistant, who was linked by wire and receiver to the sending device in Bell's office.

  
  
  

• 1877 The first commercial telephone is introduced and the first telephone line is installed between Charlie William's electrical shop on Court Street, Boston and his home about three miles away

  
  
  

• 1897 Joseph John Thomson discovers electrons a new way to represent a bit!