Norbert Wiener

Norbert Wiener
Born(1894-11-26)November 26, 1894
DiedMarch 18, 1964(1964-03-18) (aged 69)
Stockholm, Sweden
EducationTufts College (BA)
Cornell University (MA)
Harvard University (PhD)
Known for
Spouse
Margaret Engemann
(m. 1926)
Children2
AwardsBôcher Memorial Prize (1933)
National Medal of Science (1963)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
Cybernetics
Computer Science
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology
ThesisA Comparison Between the Treatment of the Algebra of Relatives by Schroeder and that by Whitehead and Russell (1913)
Doctoral advisorsKarl Schmidt[1]
Other academic advisorsJosiah Royce[2]
Doctoral students
Signature

Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American computer scientist, mathematician and philosopher. He became a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.

Wiener is considered the originator[3] of cybernetics, the science of communication as it relates to living things and machines,[4] with implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, and the organization of society. His work heavily influenced computer pioneer John von Neumann, information theorist Claude Shannon, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and others.

Wiener is credited as being one of the first to theorize that all intelligent behavior was the result of feedback mechanisms, that could possibly be simulated by machines and was an important early step towards the development of modern artificial intelligence.[5]

  1. ^ Norbert Wiener at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. ^ Leone Montagnini, Harmonies of Disorder – Norbert Wiener: A Mathematician-Philosopher of Our Time, Springer, 2017, p. 61.
  3. ^ Wiener, Norbert (1948). Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
  4. ^ "The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics Pioneer Norbert Wiener on Communication, Control, and the Morality of Our Machines". June 15, 2018.
  5. ^ Research, AI (January 11, 2019). "The Beginnings of AI Research". world-information.org. Archived from the original on January 11, 2019. Retrieved January 11, 2019.