Norbert Wiener

Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was Professor of Mathematics at MIT. Wiener is considered the father of cybernetics, a formalization of the notion of feedback, with implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, philosophy, and the organization of society.

Works

Books

• Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Paris: Hermann & Cie, Cambridge, MA: Technology Press, and New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1948, 194 pp; MIT Press and Wiley, 2nd ed., 1961, 212 pp; 1965; 1980. Reviews: Dubarle (1948, FR), Littauer (1949), MacColl (1950). In the spring of 1947, Wiener was invited to a congress on harmonic analysis, held in Nancy, France and organized by the bourbakist mathematician, Szolem Mandelbrojt. During this stay in France Wiener received the offer to write a manuscript on the unifying character of this part of applied mathematics, which is found in the study of Brownian motion and in telecommunication engineering. The following summer, back in the United States, Wiener decided to introduce the neologism ‘cybernetics’ into his scientific theory. According to Pierre De Latil, MIT Press tried their best to prevent the publication of the book in France, since Wiener, then professor at MIT, was bound to them by contract. As a representative of Hermann Editions, M. Freymann managed to find a compromise and the French publisher won the rights to the book. Having lived together in Mexico, Freymann and Wiener were friends and it is Freymann who is supposed to have suggested that Wiener write this book. Benoît Mandelbrot and Walter Pitts proofread the manuscript. [1]
  • Cibernetica. Controllo e comunicazione nell’animale e nella macchina, Milan: Bompiani, 1953. (Italian)
  • N. Viner (Н. Винер), Kibernetika, ili upravlenie i svyaz v zhivotnom i mashine [Кибернетика, или Управление и связь в животном и машине], Moscow: Sovetskoe radio [Советское радио], trans. G.N. Povarov, Moscow: Sovetskoe radio, 1958, 216 pp; 1963; 2nd ed., 1968. (Russian)
  • Cibernética, trans. Miguel Mora Hidalgo, Madrid: Guadiana, 1960, 314 pp; 1971. (Spanish)
  • Kybernetik. Regelung und Nachrichtenübertragung in Lebewesen und Maschine, rororo, 1968; Econ, 1992. (German)
  • Cybernetyka, czyli sterowanie i komunikacja w zwierzęciu i maszynie, Warsaw: PWN, 1971, 261 pp. (Polish)
  • Cibernética ou controle e comunicação no animal e na maquina, São Paulo: Poligono, 1970. (Portuguese)
  • Cibernética o el control y comunicación en animales y máquinas, trans. Francisco Martín, Barcelona: Tusquets, 1985, 266 pp; 1998; 2002, 150 pp. (Spanish)

• The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1950; 2nd ed., 1954; London: Eyre and Spottiswode, 1954; New York: Avon Books, 1967; New York: Da Capo Press, 1988; London: Free Association Books, 1989.
  • Cybernétique et société, Union Générale d'Éditions, 1952; 1971. (French)
  • Mensch und Menschmaschine, Frankfurt am Main: Metzner, 1952; 4th ed., 1972. (German)
  • Cibernética e sociedade: o uso humano de seres humanos, trans. José Paulo Paes, São Paulo: Cultrix, 1954; 2nd ed., 1968, 190 pp. (Portuguese)
  • Kibernetika i obshchestvo [Кибернетика и общество], trans. E.G. Panfilov, Moscow: IIL, 1958, 200 pp. (Russian)
  • Cybernetyka i społeczeństwo, Warsaw: KiW, Warszawa 1960, 236 pp; Cybernetyka a społeczeństwo, 2nd ed., Warsaw: KiW, 1961, 217 pp. (Polish)
  • Introduzione alla cibernetica. L’uso umano degli esseri umani, trans. Dario Persiani, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1966, 229 pp; 3rd ed., 1970, 240 pp; 1982; 2012, 234 pp. (Italian). Review.
  • Ihmisestä, koneista, kielestä, trans. Pertti Jotuni, Helsinki: WS, 1969. (Finnish)
  • Cybernética y sociedad, Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1969. (Spanish)
  • Cybernética y sociedad, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1984. (Spanish)

• God and Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion, MIT Press, 1966.
  • Dumnezeu şi Golem, S.A. Comentariu asupra cîtorva puncte de contact între cibernetică şi religie, trans. Edmond Nicolau and Lucia Nasta, Bucharest: Ştiinţifică, 1969, IA. (Romanian)

• Invention: The Care and Feeding of Ideas, intro. Steve Joshua Heims, MIT Press, 1993, 185 pp.

Autobiography

• Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth, MIT Press, 1953.
• I am a Mathematician, London: Gollancz, 1956.

Collected writings

• Selected Papers of Norbert Wiener, Expository papers by Y. W. Lee, Norman Levinson, and W. T. Martin, MIT Press & SIAM, 1964.

Bibliography

• "Bibliography of Norbert Wiener", Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 72:1, Part 2 (1966), pp 135-145.

Literature

• Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, Dark hero of the information age: in search of Norbert Wiener the father of cybernetics, New York: Basic Books, 2005.

See also

• Cybernetics

Links

• http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/research/collections/collections-mc/mc22.html
• Wiener at Wikipedia