The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World--And Shapes Our Future

A timely, witty, and mind-broadening exploration by a humanist-scientist into how technology dominates our lives, providing brilliant insight into how computation and “thinking in code” have shaped the human experience In the digital world, code is the essential primary building block, the equivalent of the cell or DNA in the biological sphere—and almost as mysterious.

Code can create entire worlds, real and virtual; it allows us to connect instantly to people and places around the globe; and it performs tasks that were once only possible in science fiction. It is a superpower, and not just in a technical sense. As vividly illustrated by Samuel Arbesman, it is the ultimate connector, providing new insight and meaning into everything from philosophy to language, narrative, and even our patterns of thought.

Code has become as important as water or electricity. If the software that houses the code fails, so do computers, phones, traffic lights, subway systems, airports, any modern cars, and most integrated systems, including the power grid. Since the mid-twentieth century we have lived in a world imagined and created by code—even before we supercharged its influence with AI.

The Magic of Code shows how computation touches every aspect of our thinking and area of knowledge, reframing our relationship with technology into a series of journeys as magical and delightful—and sometimes as perilous—as those of the first voyagers who crossed the Atlantic or the astronauts who landed on the moon.