Information facts for kids

This symbol can often be found at places where there is more information about a topic.

Information is a term with many meanings depending on context, but is as a rule closely related to such concepts as meaning, knowledge, communication, truth, representation, and mental stimulus.

Although many people speak of the advent of the "information age", the "information society", and information technologies, and even though information science and informatics are often in the spotlight, the word "information" is often used without careful consideration of the various meanings it has come to acquire.

Information in computer science

People who use computers often use the words information and data in the same way. There are special fields of study called "information science" and "information technology" (IT).

In the 1970s and 1980s, some people gave a new, specific meaning to "information". At that time, the first computer databases were built. In computer science, data often means a kind of information that has not been checked. That means data has not been changed or fixed, and you may not be able to trust it. With the new meaning, information means data that has been checked and passed tests for what it must be. A person can trust that "information" is correct.

Information can only be correct and good enough to trust if there are very good and complete ways to check the data (data checking, validation or verification) and decide it is good enough (acceptance process). A person must know rules were used to check the data or trust the person who checked the data. If a person cannot tell that this was done, the information still seems to be data for that person, so that person must check the data again, in that general view about data.

Images for kids

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  Partial map of the Internet, with nodes representing IP addresses

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  Galactic (including dark) matter distribution in a cubic section of the Universe

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  Information embedded in an abstract mathematical object with symmetry breaking nucleus

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  Visual representation of a strange attractor, with converted data of its fractal structure

See also

In Spanish: Información para niños