The Infinite Alphabet. And the Laws of Knowledge

The celebrated scientist and author of Why Information Grows reveals how knowledge moves, drives progress and shapes the world

We all understand that knowledge shapes the fate of business and the growth of nations, but few of us are aware of the principles that govern its movement. In The Infinite Alphabet César A. Hidalgo, world-renowned for his work on economic complexity, unravels the laws describing the growth and diffusion of knowledge. To understand it, he shows, we must accept that it is not a single thing, but an ever-growing tapestry of unique ideas, experiences and received wisdom: an infinite alphabet that we are only beginning to fathom.

Hidalgo walks you through the ‘three laws’ that predict how knowledge grows, moves, and decays. Through dozens of stories, he takes the reader from a failed attempt to build a city of knowledge in Ecuador to the growth of China’s innovation economy, explaining why aircraft manufacturers in Italy began manufacturing scooters after the Second World War and how migrants like Samuel Slater shaped the industrial fabric of the United States.

By the end of this journey, you will understand everything from why knowledge grows exponentially in the electronics industry to what mechanisms allow knowledge to cross geographic borders, social networks, and professional boundaries.

These principles will teach you how knowledge shapes the world.

About the Author

César A. Hidalgo is a physicist, professor, and author known for pioneering work in economic complexity, data visualization, and applied artificial intelligence. For nine years he led MIT’s Collective Learning Group before moving to France to found the Center for Collective Learning (CCL), an international research laboratory with offices at the Toulouse School of Economics and Corvinus University of Budapest.


Author of Why Information Grows (Allen Lane, 2015) and co-author of The Atlas of Economic Complexity and How Humans Judge Machines (MIT, 2014, 2021), he was the sole recipient of the 2018 Lagrange Prize recognizing excellence and innovation in the study of complex systems. Hidalgo is the author of more than sixty peer-reviewed publications that have been cited by tens of thousands of studies. His TED talk on augmented democracy has been viewed over two million times.