BOB: Barron's Own Blog

As Pheidippides, the greek runner of old, made his way uphill from the battle of Marathon to Athens, there must have been some point where he imagined the future of Nike (running shoes) and Caterpillar (highway construction equipment). Years later, as the Romans constructed a network of roads to facilitate commerce, did Pliny, Archimedes, or Apollodorus of Damascus ever imagine the reach and speed of information superhighway that would eventually follow them? Unlikely. And yet, maybe not. Manovich’s discussion of numerical representation and mathematical manipulation is the current equivalent to the efforts undertaken years ago by the Roman empire. They developed a well-constructed message, hired, trained and supported resilient and efficient couriers, and retained talented translators.
While counting is as old as fingers and toes, humankind has been busy with other pursuits, generally because we can. Computers, on the other “hand,” can not. They can only count, but they do it very, very well. With their amazing counting ability comes the capability of creating specific symbolic representations for everything. Thus, numerical representation allows for systematic modification, modulation, automation, manipulation, and reuse of content and processes. Numerical representation is germane to the information superhighway as was the invention of the wheel in the pedestrian age.