Wiener, Norbert, 1894–1964, American mathematician, educator, and founder of the field of cybernetics, b. Columbia, Mo., grad. Tufts College, 1909, Ph.D. Harvard, 1913. In 1920 he joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he became (1932) professor of mathematics. He made significant contributions to a number of areas of mathematics including harmonic analysis and Fourier transforms, but is best known for his theory of cybernetics cybernetics [Gr.,=steersman], term coined by American mathematician Norbert Wiener to refer to the general analysis of control systems and communication systems in living organisms and machines.
..... Click the link for more information. , the comparative study of control and communication in humans and machines. He also made significant contributions to the development of computers and calculators. Wiener recounted his youth and training in the autobiographical Ex-Prodigy (1953). He described his mature years and scientific career in I Am a Mathematician (1956). His other writings include The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), Nonlinear Problems in Random Theory (1958), and Cybernetics (1948, rev. ed. 1961).
(born Nov. 26, 1894, Columbia, Mo., U.S.—died March 18, 1964, Stockholm, Swed.) U.S. mathematician. He earned a Ph.D. from Harvard at 18. He joined the faculty of MIT in 1919. His work on generalized harmonic analysis and Tauberian theorems (which deduce the convergence of an infinite series) won the American Mathematical Society's Bôcher Prize in 1933. The origin of cybernetics as an independent science is generally dated from the 1948 publication of his Cybernetics. He made contributions to such areas as stochastic processes, quantum theory, and, during World War II, gunfire control. Crater Wiener on the Moon is named for him.
Wiener, Norbert (1894–1964) mathematician, communication theorist; born in Columbia, Mo. A child prodigy, he graduated from Tufts College at age 14, did graduate work at Harvard and Cornell, read philosophy at Cambridge University under Bertrand Russell, and then worked as an editor and taught philosophy and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before settling into its mathematics department (1919–64). During World War I he had done some special mathematics for the U.S. Army and in World War II he worked on developing high-speed electronic computer radar. Most of his early work in such fields as stochastic processes and harmonic analysis were too esoteric and complex for the public, but in 1948 he published Cybernetics —he coined the word from the Greek for "steersman," and "cyber-" would become a commonly used prefix. Although it relied on such terms as "feedback," "input," "output," and "homeostasis," the book was written in a relatively accessible way and was the first work to inform an only dimly aware public of what was to be the wave of the future—the communication theory that would underlie the handling of information by electronic devices, namely computers. Known for various personal quirks, he had a reputation for being a terrible lecturer and a poor listener, and he could be both inappropriately pompous and playful. His fellow mathematicians would often criticize his work but he remained a bridge between the leading edge of scientific thought and a broader public with such books as The Human Use of Human Beings (1950) and Gold and Golem, Inc. (1964). He was awarded the National Medal of Science (1964) in recognition of his pathbreaking work.
..... Click the link for more information. , the comparative study of control and communication in humans and machines. He also made significant contributions to the development of computers and calculators. Wiener recounted his youth and training in the autobiographical Ex-Prodigy (1953). He described his mature years and scientific career in I Am a Mathematician (1956). His other writings include The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), Nonlinear Problems in Random Theory (1958), and Cybernetics (1948, rev. ed. 1961).
Bibliography
See F. Conway and J. Siegelman, Dark Hero of the Information Age (2004).
Wiener, Norbert
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Norbert Wiener.
(credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
Wiener, Norbert (1894–1964) mathematician, communication theorist; born in Columbia, Mo. A child prodigy, he graduated from Tufts College at age 14, did graduate work at Harvard and Cornell, read philosophy at Cambridge University under Bertrand Russell, and then worked as an editor and taught philosophy and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before settling into its mathematics department (1919–64). During World War I he had done some special mathematics for the U.S. Army and in World War II he worked on developing high-speed electronic computer radar. Most of his early work in such fields as stochastic processes and harmonic analysis were too esoteric and complex for the public, but in 1948 he published Cybernetics —he coined the word from the Greek for "steersman," and "cyber-" would become a commonly used prefix. Although it relied on such terms as "feedback," "input," "output," and "homeostasis," the book was written in a relatively accessible way and was the first work to inform an only dimly aware public of what was to be the wave of the future—the communication theory that would underlie the handling of information by electronic devices, namely computers. Known for various personal quirks, he had a reputation for being a terrible lecturer and a poor listener, and he could be both inappropriately pompous and playful. His fellow mathematicians would often criticize his work but he remained a bridge between the leading edge of scientific thought and a broader public with such books as The Human Use of Human Beings (1950) and Gold and Golem, Inc. (1964). He was awarded the National Medal of Science (1964) in recognition of his pathbreaking work.
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