Abstract
Norbert Wiener, founder of cybernetics, was a unique personality, a larger-than-life character famous for his very wide interests, extremely incisive mind and personal warmth, but also for his absent-mindedness, low self-esteem, and severe mood-swings. He was born in midwestern USA (Missouri) in 1894 to a Jewish family – his father had emigrated from Russia and his mother from Germany. Although the family were descended from the great twelfth century philosopher Moses Maimonides, their Jewishness was hidden from Wiener during his childhood, and he practised no religion until late in life.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bernard-Weil, E. (1994). The presence of Norbert Wiener in both order cybernetics. Kybernetes, 23(6/7), 133–143.
Brand, S. (1976). For God’s sake, Margaret: Conversation with Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead. CoEvolution Quarterly, 10, 32–44.
Conway, F., & Siegelman, J. (2005). Dark hero of the information age: In search of Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics. New York: Basic Books.
Hayles, N. K. (1999). How we became posthuman: Virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Heims, S. J. (1980). John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From mathematics to the technologies of life and death. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hill, D. (2015). Norbert Wiener and the counter-tradition to the dream of mastery. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 34(3), 60–63. p. 72.
Kline, R. K. (2015). The cybernetics moment: Or why we call our age the information age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Masani, P. R. (1990). Norbert Wiener, 1894–1964. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag.
McCulloch, W. S., & Pitts, W. (1943). A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, 5, 115–133.
Rosenbleuth, A., Wiener, N., & Bigelow, J. (1943). Behavior, purpose and teleology. Philosophy of Science, 10(1), 18–24.
Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Von Foerster, H., & Poersken, B. (2002). Understanding systems: Conversations on epistemology and ethics. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer-Systeme Verlag.
Wiener, N. (1947). A scientist rebels. Atlantic Monthly, 179, 46.
Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics: Or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wiener, N. (1954). The human use of human beings: Cybernetics and society (revised edition). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Open University
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ramage, M., Shipp, K. (2020). Norbert Wiener. In: Systems Thinkers. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7475-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7475-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-7474-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-7475-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)