Information

The objective of information science is to determinate the informative content of determined object or event and to obtain a better measure of that content. The word “information” is derived of the Latin expression inform that signifies “to give a form to”, meaning the imposition of a structure over an indefinite set of facts. Given the fact that information is not matter neither energy, then it should not be considered an absolute greatness, instead it should be faced in a relative way, such as entropy. The expression “information quantity” is a metaphor without any physical or numerical property. The information isolated from a system and out of context does not have any meaning; it is the contextualization that brings information to live. Information is transformed in knowledge only when it has a practical utility and without this the information does not pass of mere abstract data, physical or not.

According to Shannon and Weaver (1949) the information can be measured as negative entropy being a measure of the order in a system. It can be sad that information is a form of data processing concerning objects, events or persons that only has meaning for a receiver if the increase of knowledge reduces the uncertainly in decision making processes.

Langford’s equation defines information according to the following formula:

I = i (D, S, t)

In this formula, I represents the information obtained by a determined interpretative mechanism i which in turn acts on data set D, relatively to a previous knowledge stage S, during a period of time t.