Imagine Alice has an idea and she wants to share it.

There are so many ways to share an idea.

She could draw a picture,

make an engraving,

write a song,

(piano music)

send a telegraph

or an email.

But how are these things different?

And more importantly,

why are they the same?

This story is about a fundamental particle

of all forms of communication.

It begins with a special skill you likely take for granted.

Language.

All language allows you to take a thought

or mental object

and break it down into a series of conceptual chunks.

These chunks are externalized

using a series of signals or symbols.

Humans express themselves using

a variation in sound and physical action,

as do chirping birds and dancing bees.

And man-made machines

exchanging a dancing stream of electrical vibrations.

Even our bodies are built according to instructions

stored inside microscopic books known as DNA.

All are different forms of one thing.

Information.

In simplest terms,

information is what allows one mind to influence another.

It's based on the idea of communication as selection.

Information, no matter the form,

can be measured using a fundamental unit,

in the same way we can measure the mass of different objects

using a standard measure such as kilograms or pounds.

This allows us to precisely measure and compare

the weight of say rocks, water, or wheat

using a scale.