Overview
- Raises the question What is life where does the machine end and where does the living being begin?
- The coding of information is amazingly similar in living beings, viruses and computer viruses
- Reveals similarity of coding in living organisms, viruses and computer viruses
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
About this book
Microorganisms, viruses, and computer programs encode all the information necessary to reproduce and spread themselves. Yet these mechanisms are amazingly similar in the animate world, in the world of viruses, and even in the world of technical systems. The book shows how great the parallels are between these various animate and inanimate replicating systems and what they are based on.
The excursion also leads into the fascinating world of genetics, to the question of what defines life and into the programming of software that multiplies itself independently. Finally, the question is derived whether and to what extent such self-replicating technical systems can become as dangerous as infectious viruses in triggering pandemics, such as the Corona pandemic in 2020.
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
Table of contents (7 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
The author Rafael Ball holds a PhD in biology, is a historian of science and a librarian. He is director of the ETH-Bibliothek Zurich and lecturer in library science and management at the University of Applied Sciences Graubünden. For many years he has been concerned with questions of information theory, science communication and the effects of digitisation on science and society in the present and the future. He is the author of numerous relevant publications, editor of information science journals and speaker at meetings and conferences.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Viruses in all Dimensions
Book Subtitle: How an Information Code Controls Viruses, Software and Microorganisms
Authors: Rafael Ball
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38826-3
Publisher: Springer Wiesbaden
eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-658-38825-6Published: 31 March 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-3-658-38826-3Published: 30 March 2023
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 156
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations, 14 illustrations in colour
Topics: Computers and Society, Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering, Computing Milieux