Norbert Wiener

With this short account we can only briefly touch on the life and career of one of the most colorful and eccentric mathematical geniuses of the 20th century, Norbert Wiener (November 26, 189 ! "arch 18, 196 #$ %ne could fill the available s&ace with nothing but amusing stories about his legendary other'mindedness that significantly contributed to the stereoty&ical image of mathematics &rofessors$ (e founded a new disci&line ! cybernetics the study of control and communication in animals and machines$ )his has had a &owerful influence on a generation of &ost WW** scientists, ins&iring a great deal of research into the &otential to e+tend human ca&abilities with interfaces to so&histicated electronics$ Wiener sought to understand the &rinci&les governing the relationshi& between com&uting machines and the human nervous system$ While his vision was that of a society in which machines would free &eo&le from re&etitive drudgery so they might have time for more creative &ursuits, he also was concerned about the dangers of dehumani,ation and dis&lacement$ (is &redictions about the coming -automatic age. included his view that many machines would have -brains of brass and sinews of iron$. (e wrote in The Human Use of Human Beings (19/0019/ #1

-2 the machine 2 which can learn and can ma3e decisions on the basis of its learning, will in no way be obliged to ma3e such decisions as we should have made, or will be acce&table to us$ 4or the man who is not aware of this, to throw the &roblem of res&onsibility on the machine, whether it can learn or not, is to cast his res&onsibility to the winds, and to find it coming bac3 seated on the whirlwind$.

5 child &rodigy, Norbert was the son of 6ussian'born 7eo Wiener and 8ertha 9ahn, the daughter of a &rominent 5merican de&artment store owner$ 7eo was a former medical and engineering student at the :niversity of Warsaw and the :niversity of 8erlin, who, unha&&y with both fields, immigrated to the :nited ;tates in 1880$ 5fter wor3ing as a laborer in various cities, he landed a teaching <ob in 9ansas =ity and eventually a &osition as a >rofessor of "odern 7anguages at the :niversity of "issouri in =olumbia where he met and married 8ertha, and where Norbert was born$ ;hortly thereafter the family moved to 8oston where 7eo taught at various schools before becoming a >rofessor of ;lavic 7anguages and 7iterature at (arvard$ Norbert, who read fluently at three, credited his family and his father?s e+tensive library of boo3s on every imaginable sub<ect for his own very wide interests$

Wiener went to the >eabody ;chool when he was seven, but his reading at home &ut him far ahead of his older classmates in many areas and far behind in others$ (e was rather &oor at the mani&ulative as&ects of arithmetic, leading 7eo to ta3e him out of school so he could manage his son?s education and systematically &roduce a genius$ 5ccording to Norbert, 7eo was a tyrannical tas3master and a bully@ every mista3e had to be corrected as it was made$ Norbert wrote1 -"y lessons often ended in a family scene$ 4ather was raging, * was wee&ing and my mother did her best to defend me, although hers was a losing battle$. *n one of his boo3s, Wiener dedicated it to his father, writing, -to my closest mentor and dearest antagonist$. Wiener?s eyesight was very &oor, causing him to be ordered not to read for si+ months to give his eyes time to recover$ *n the interim, 7eo taught Norbert to do mental mathematics ' a s3ill that enabled him to see mathematics in nonverbal ways$

5t nine Wiener was &ut in 5yer (igh ;chool, where his classmates were seven years older$ 7eo continued to coach his son and when Norbert graduated from high school at age eleven he was well &re&ared for the ne+t &hase of his education at )ufts =ollege$ 5lthough he e+celled as a student, he was

still socially a child, and his time s&ent as an undergraduate was often un&leasant$ (e graduated from )ufts at fourteen with a degree in mathematics and then entered (arvard$ Wiener toyed with the idea of studying ,oology but this &roved im&ossible due to his &oor eyesight and coordination, which made him useless in the laboratory$ (e used a scholarshi& he won to attend =ornell in 1910 to study &hiloso&hy$ 5fter a year Wiener returned to (arvard, and, at the age of 18, received a >h$A$ for a dissertation on the boundary between &hiloso&hy and mathematics under the direction of 9arl ;chmidt$ 5 (arvard traveling fellowshi& allowed Wiener to go to =ambridge to study with 8ertrand 6ussell, who told him he needed to learn more mathematics and directed him to ta3e courses with B$($ (ardy$ 5lthough Wiener was greatly influenced by (ardy, he came to view the latter?s disdain and condescension of a&&lications as -&ure esca&ism$.

*n 191 Wiener traveled to BCttingen to study differential eDuations with (ilbert and grou& theory with 7andau$ 8ac3 in the :nited ;tates, Wiener taught &hiloso&hy at =olumbia and (arvard, and mathematics at the :niversity of "aine, wor3ed for the Beneral Electric =om&any, followed by a &osition as staff writer with Encyclo&edia 5mericana, and then a year as a <ournalist for the Boston Herald$ Auring World War *, he acce&ted an invitation from %swald Feblen to do war wor3 on ballistics at the 5berdeen >roving Bround in "aryland, where he hel&ed formulate mathematical tables used to determine where guns should be aimed before firing$ *t was at this time that his interest in mathematics revived$

5t the end of the war, he too3 a &osition as an instructor in mathematics at the "assachusetts *nstitute of )echnology ("*)#, which had <ust moved from the 8oston side of the =harles 6iver to the newly constructed buildings in =ambridge$ 5t the time the mathematics de&artment of "*) was &rimarily a service de&artment to the engineering school and was not &articularly distinguished$ )hrough his intellectual virtuosity and curiosity, Wiener &layed a &rofound role in transforming "*) from a

technical school into a uniDue university, famous for scientific and technological training as well as research$ Wiener did not attract the attention of more &restigious mathematics de&artments such as (arvard or >rinceton, because he did not have a graduate degree in mathematics (and never would have one#, had &ublished nothing in mathematical <ournals, and was a miserable teacher$ 5t the time of the a&&ointment at "*), Wiener was 2 @ by the time he was G0, he was at the to& of the mathematical world$ )wo years shy of his fortieth birthday, the 5merican "athematical ;ociety awarded him the 8Ccher >ri,e, which he shared with "arston "orse$ Wiener &assed through the various ran3s, becoming a full &rofessor in 19G2, and remained on the "*) faculty until his retirement in 1960$

Auring the early 1920s Wiener freDuently visited mathematicians in England, 4rance and Bermany$ *n 1926, he married "argaret Engermann and then set off for Euro&e as a Buggenheim scholar, his wife <oining him after com&leting her teaching duties in modern languages at Huniata :niversity in >ennsylvania$ 5t "*) Wiener constructed a mathematical theory of 8rownian motion, which led him to the theory of &robability and the study of harmonic analysis$ (is wor3 in these areas s&ar3ed his interest in how information was transmitted and &rocessed, both in humans and machines$ (e felt that &ure communication &rocesses involved similar, definable elements, whether conducted by humans or machines$ (e reasoned that if these elements, or messages, once adeDuately defined, could be rigorously controlled, they could also be used to control both machines and human beings$ *t would then follow that by being able to modify behavior by learning from these &rocesses, humans and machines both could evolve to higher levels of functioning$

Wiener coined the word cybernetics from the Bree3 kybernetes, meaning -steersman,. to describe both his theories and those arising from similar research by other noted scientists and mathematicians, among them Fannevar 8ush, =laude ;hannon, 5lan )uring and Hohn von Neumann$ When a steersman moves a rudder, the course of his boat changes$ When the steersman notes that the &revious course

change is too much, he once again moves the rudder, in the o&&osite direction$ *t is the feedbac3 of the steersman?s senses that is the controlling agent that 3ee&s the craft on its intended course$ )he term cybernetics led to numerous neologisms such as cybers&ace$ Wiener is res&onsible for the introduction into mathematics and science of the words1 in&ut, out&ut, signal, signal'to'noise ratio, uncertainty, redundancy, bits and chun3s of information, information &rocessing, encoding, etc$ (e &redicted the mass &roduction of affordable com&uters for uses in businesses, but did not foresee how Duic3ly industry would reduce the si,e and cost of com&uters so that they would find use in almost everything$

Auring WW**, Wiener wor3ed on the &roblem of &ointing a gun to fire at a moving target$ (is studies in controlling mechanisms hel&ed develo& new &rograms for ballistics guidance based on theories of feedbac3$ (e recogni,ed the fundamental relationshi& between two basic &roblems ! communication and control$ Wiener asserted that a machine that changes its res&onses based on feedbac3 is a machine that learns$ 8y the end of 19 6 he decided he would no longer &artici&ate in wea&ons'related research$ (is research before, during and after the war led to the &ublication of Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine (19 8#$ *n it, Wiener described a world focused on information, rather than energy@ and on digital and numeric &rocesses, not machine or analog$ (is theories largely &redicted the future develo&ment of com&uters$ (e was convinced that biology, even sociology and anthro&ology, would be as &rofoundly affected by cybernetics as electronics theory or com&uter engineering$ Wiener e+&ressed his view of the central im&ortance of information in human life1

-*nformation is a name for the content of what is e+changed with the outer world as we ad<ust to it, and ma3e our ad<ustment felt u&on it$ )he &rocess of receiving and of using information is the &rocess of our ad<usting to the contingencies of the outer environment, and of our living effectively with that environment$ )he needs and com&le+ity of modern life ma3e greater

demands on this &rocess of information than ever before2$ )o live effectively is to live with adeDuate information$ )hus, communication and control belong to the essence of man?s inner life, even as they belong to his life in society$.

8esides cybernetics, Wiener contributed new ideas to widely divergent sub<ects, including mathematical &rediction theory and Duantum theory$ 5&&lying his theoretical descri&tion of 8rownian movement to Duantum &henomena, he showed how Duantum theory, to the e+tent it is based on &robability, is consistent with other branches of science$ No single disci&line was large enough to hold all his interests$ While recu&erating from a fall, he s&urred the develo&ment of an im&roved &rosthetic arm$ (e and "e+ican cardiologist 5rturo 6osenblueth studied the rhythms of the human heart$ With electrical engineer and future "*) &resident Herome Wienser, he develo&ed a glove for deaf &ersons that sensed vibrations$

Wiener was e+tremely near'sighted, &hysically clumsy, arrogant, moody and sus&icious$ (e was noted for his goatee, three'&iece suits and ever'&resent cigars$ (ans 4reudenthal described him1

-*n a&&earance and behavior, Norbert Wiener was a baroDue figure, short, rotund, and myo&ic, combining these and many Dualities in e+treme degree$ (is conversation was a curious mi+ture of &om&osity and wantonness$ (e was a &oor listener$ (is self'&raise was &layful, convincing, and never offensive$ (e s&o3e many languages but was not easy to understand in any of them$ (e was a famously bad lecturer$.

Wiener wrote two e+cellent autobiogra&hies, Ex- rodigy! My Childhood and "outh (19/G# and # Am a Mathematician (19/6#$ *n The Human Use of Human Beings (19/0#, Wiener warned of the dangerous im&lications of cybernetics and automation, and feared might automation cause mass unem&loyment$

(e reminded the scientific community of their s&ecial res&onsibilities regarding the a&ocaly&tic wea&onry they had created$ (e felt that in order for mathematicians to be effective they needed to reali,e how their efforts affect the changing nature of society and to develo& a sense of social res&onsibility$ 5 few wee3s before his death, Wiener was awarded the National "edal of ;cience$ (e died during a tri& to ;toc3holm, ;weden on "arch 18, 196 $

)here are many stories, &erha&s a&ocry&hal, illustrating Wiener?s lac3 of concern for mundane things because his mind was occu&ied on more esoteric items$ (ere?s <ust one1 %nce a student who wished to a&&roach Wiener, but was too shy to do so, wal3ed into the "*) &ost office and found that Wiener was standing at a table staring at a &iece of &a&er and a&&earing dee& in thought$ ;eeing the great man?s intense concentration, the student was about to leave when Wiener whirled around and almost ran into him$ )he latter e+claimed, -Why, >rofessor WienerI. Wiener sla&&ed his hand to his forehead and said, -Wiener, yes that?s it$.

5s an undergraduate, * read Wiener?s Cybernetics, but the combination of my ine+&erience and his chaotic writing style made the going very difficult$ The Human Use of Human Beings was more digestible but disturbing, for it &ortrayed automation as a bogeyman$ >erha&s it was my youthful o&timism about the &otential of the theory he had described and for which he coined its name, but * felt he was being unduly gloomy$ *n some res&ects he seemed li3e those who &redicted that the *ndustrial 6evolution would cause economic and social disaster$ 8ut there were such disasters, horrible disasters, as related in the wor3s of =harles Aic3ens and others$ *t was not the technology, &er se, that Wiener was warning about, but rather the unwise way &eo&le might use it$ 4ortunately, his dire &ro&hecies were for the most &art not reali,ed, but he was right to issue the warning, reminding &eo&le of their res&onsibility to one another because &rogress for some may be a calamity for others$

Quotation of the Day: Branted an urge to create, one creates with what one has$. ! Norbert
Wiener