Students Blinded By Science

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31306, 28 February 1967, Page 1

Students Blinded By Science

Dr. Leslie Kay, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Canterbury, last evening blinded with science 1500 new students from all faculties and then told them he simply wanted to show them that information was not knowledge. One of the largest obstacles between the two was inability to communicate, he said.

Professor Kay said books could be read anywhere and all the information anyone wanted was in books. But learning from books lacked colour and did not lead to full understanding. This was the task of the university. “Unless you listen to others you’ll never really learn; unless you talk with others you’ll never understand," he said. Knowledge demanded

familiarity, it required action. Communication was the link between information and knowledge. Professor Kay said that as an electrical engineer he looked at communication differently from the philosopher, the philologist, and the historian. He then tried his little test.

“Messages transmitted from A to B contain information. . . . Engineers do not attempt to measure information in its normal context. . . . During a two-minute telephone call we would expect twice the information in a one-minute call.

... A book of 50 pages would contain 50 times more than one page. . . . However if we consider the possible number of messages to be the total number of permutations of the elements of a message the number of discrete messages a source can transmit rises exponentially with the length of the message ... If a book of 50 pages contains 200 words and the writer’s total vocabulary is 1000 words the number of permu-

tations is 1000 raised to the power of 200. The number of different messages the book is 1000 raised to the power of 10,000. . . . The new information content of a message is the inverse probability of the message having been received: ... In communication or information we are concerned with probability or chance. . . . The information gained decreases with a priori probability and increases with increasing a posteriori probability. Thus we can say information received is the logarithm of the ratio of the a posteriori probability divided by the a priori probability.” With new students wilting under this onslaught, Professor Kay said: “I would say you have got practically nothing out of that. Up to a point you were following me but one by one you were lost off.”

Drawing widely from examples in radio, television, and advertising, Professor Kay said: “I must find a means of making you tune

in on me—not my voice but my thoughts. In this way you will absorb the information. That is why we have the university.” Professor Kay then discoursed on the proliferation of information in science alone—loo journals in the nineteenth century, 1000 by the 1850’s, about 10,000 by 1900, about 100,000 now, and perhaps a million by the year 2000. He described how computers now codified and extracted information in any field. 1

Professor Kay said that to make maximum use of new media all disciplines must cooperate. Understanding was essential to true knowledge. “What is the purpose of your study?” asked Professor Kay. “How do you intend to use your knowledge for the good of society?” Professor Kay was speaking at the university’s welcome to new students, presided over by the Vice-Chan-cellor (Professor N. C. Phillips) and attended by other senior academic officers.