I work in data communications and until I read this book I found the folks at the phone company baffling.

This book captures well the technical culture of the phone company right before the Internet took off.

A lot of really great explanation of how things like analog modems work- with a lot of great pictures.

This book covers physical, information theoretic, and electronic issues in data communication. While the book is a bit dated, the classic material really hasn't changed that much. Pierce and Nolls give a masterful treatment of this material at an introductory to intermediate level. If you are looking for a book packed with equations and proofs or a book devoid of such things you will be disappointed. Rather, the book is heavy on qualitative understanding, with some analysis and equations following from the qualitative understanding.

When I got this book, I picked it up in a bargain bin, and thought that it was worth a ...gamble that it might have some content (it looked a little too accessible, not deep). After reading this book and Pierce's (same author) Introduction to Information Theory: Signals Systems and Noise, I have a new appreciation. Pierce is the kind of guy who can get a point across, and give an understanding of some deep concepts. This book is great, and I'm really glad I have it.

Given that electronic signals are central to both artificial computers and biological nervous systems, this easy-to-read reference on electronic signals may prove useful to readers of many backgrounds.

First off, I am a very tough grade. I never give more than 3 stars unless a book is exceptional. This book is THE FINEST introductory book every written on information theory!! ... (Lemme explain briefly: In the golden era of information theory, there were many people who sought to "jump on the information theory bandwagon". In fact Claude Shannon actually wrote a brief paper about that. You had all kinds of people trying to apply information theory to the fields of investments and even psychology, ad nauseum. This book has chapters that deal with that... With respect to Pierce, it's junk bogus science... and he really shouldn't have sunk to that level.... even thought there continue to be many Thesis and Dissertations today which still try to use information theory to justify economics and group psychology... Believe that stuff if it makes you happy).

This book is practical, it get's straight to the point and tells you what information theory can actually (and is actually) used for. Alot of information theory books don't
have any practical value whatsoever (Reza, Ash, Khinchin) as they seem to be written more by mathemeticians than scientists/engineers... Pierce has written several books in the golden era, and he is one of the very best authors. His insight, knowledge and clarity of writing are almost unparalleled by no other author. Only Claude Shannon, Bernard Sklar and James Massey rival John Pierce in exceptionally simple writing style.

The book has very few mathematical equations. The ones he presents are so simple it's basic middle school mathematics. In lieiu of math equations, Pierce explains information theory in plain english. If you know nothing whatsoever about information theory... this is the book I would highly recommend first.... ...

Claude Shannon died last year, and it's really disgraceful that his name is not a household word in the manner of Einstein and Newton. He really WAS the Isaac Newton of communications theory, and his master's thesis on Boolean logic applied to circuits is probably the most cited ever.

This is the ONLY book of which I am aware which attempts to present Shannon's results to the educated lay reader, and Pierce does a crackerjack job of it. Notwithstanding, this is not a book for the casual reader. The ideas underlying the theory are inherently subtle and mathematical, although there are numerous practical manifestations of them in nature, and in human "information transmission" behavior. On the other hand, this is a work which repays all effort invested in its mastery many times over.

Pierce is an accomplished scientist/engineer, and was influential in the development of information theory/signal processing. This book has some mathematics, but lays a solid qualitative foundation for understanding the material. This book is a classic, good for computer engineers/scientists (as is his book Signals: The Science of Telecommunications). The presentation is accessible, and first hand accounts of important discoveries motivates a real appreciation for Pierce's contributions.

However, the clarity of the presentation tends to obscure just how profound and deep the thinking involved really is. During the first reading, Pierce's insights made the material seem almost obvious. Later I would get doubts that such straightforward approaches could be correct, and then would think about the correctness of his assertions. This is why this is a great book, because it focuses on important stuff, and doesn't shy away from deep topics. This is a great book for those interested in the basis of information theory, on a side note Shannon's original papers are also quite readable.

With misinterpretations of current theory (particularly on consonance and dissonance), an arrogant focus on mostly the Stanford and MIT group of the past, this book should be avoided.

There are many problems with symbols used in the text, many of which are non-standard (he uses P for intensity when it is used as Pressure in most books).

The book has mostly lame, tacked-on material on digital sound (played up incorrectly as a feature on the back cover). Music V is from the late 1960s!

The revisions are minor to the first addition.

This is not a modern work, not a good exposition, not worthy of American university classes.

There is absolutely no cross-cultural material on tunings, or discussion of musical instrument acoustics.

The ordering of material is startlingly disjunct, the focus unclear, except that the author liked these subjects, while rejecting myriad issues.

I no longer have this book, so I can't comment on the details, but it was the main text of a class that I took at UC Santa Barbara. I was very excited about the class, which was an amalgamation of two of my favorite disciplines: music and physics. Well, the class and the text were both disappointing, and I dropped the class. What I remember of the book is that it seemed rather dull, and it tended towards older ways of thinking about music, particularly in regards to the psychology of pitch (consonance = happy! dissonance = disturbed!). It did not seem like a real scholarly work to me. And I have to agree with a previous reviewer that the computer music section was totally out-of-date.

1) This book is replete with errors. Two examples:

p.68: "A minor third has a frequency ratio 6/5, so the fifth harmonic of E should have the same frequency as the sixth harmonic of C (a G)." No, the fifth harmonic of E is G#, so presumably the author means "the fifth harmonic of Eb". But a 6:5 minor third is really only one of many possible minor third tunings. The Pythagorean minor third, for example, is 32:27, and the 32nd harmonic of this C is the 27th harmonic of this Eb. (To ignore the Pythagorean scale is to ignore two thousand years of music history; here it is given very short shrift.) The point this chapter misses in regard to just intervals is that beating is a matter of degree. We have only to venture up one harmonic along the 6/5 Eb's series: its sixth harmonic (Bb, 36:5) clashes with the 7th harmonic of C (7:1). They are 49 cents (a quarter tone) apart and well within the "critical band".

p.100: "In his fine piece 'Stria' (1977), John Chowning used partial spacings and pseudo-octaves in the ratio of the Golden Mean (approximately .618)." Sorry, the Golden Mean is not a ratio; the Golden Mean means moderation. Presumably the author intends "the Golden Section". This is small error, but nevertheless inexcusable. The book ought to have been proofread and edited.

For an introductory text I recommend Sir James Jeans's "The Science and Music". For an historical text I recommend Helmholtz's "On the Sensations of Tone". For an accurate text explaining current thought I recommend Juan Roeder's "The Physics and Psychophysics of Music".