An information systems model of our universe seems to be emerging as classical reductionist physics collides with the quantum brick wall. Shannon showed how arbitrary continuous information signals can be measured exactly as discrete bits, spawning a communications revolution. Yet it seems uncanny that our quantum universe apparently lacks continuity and manifests quantum measurements exactly in discrete bits. Today's physicist, and scientists in a growing number of disciplines, need broad understanding of information theory, computation, formal languages, general systems theory, chaotic systems, emergence, and synthesis to explore the frontiers of quantum gravity, quantum communication / cryptography, quantum computation, chemistry, microbiology, genetics, and nano-technology using an information systems model. The open questions in the information systems paradigm of physics not only have direct practical application, they also provide possible pathways toward reconciliation of general relativity and quantum physics as well as a potential to make the strange new physics of our universe once again comprehensible.