The statistics of meaning: Darwin, Gibbon and Moby Dick

• Published in: Significance
• Main Authors: Montemurro M., Zanette D.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: language; information theory; semantic information; Gibbon; White whale
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11585/770512; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2009.00390.x

How concentrated is the information in Darwin's Origin of Species? How heavy a read is Gibbon's Decline and Fall? Where does a great white whale fit in? And what on earth is the mysterious Voynich manuscript that has baffled scholars for centuries? Marcelo Montemurro and Damián Zanette loo...