Instead it sends a pointer to the location where that sequence first appeared, along with the length of the matched sequence. The number of bits that you want for that pointer could be very small. In 1959, Ziv was chosen as certainly one of a handful of researchers from Israel’s defense lab to review abroad. That program, he says, remodeled the evolution of science in Israel. Its organizers didn’t steer the chosen young engineers and scientists into explicit fields. Instead, they allow them to pursue any kind of graduate research in any Western nation.

He also tried to build a Marconi transmitter from metal player-piano components. When he plugged the contraption in, the entire home went dark. Bits do disappear, making the info file dramatically smaller and thus easier to store and transmit.