Who is Norbert Wiener? Who was the "father of cybernetics"?

At present, the words "Internet" or "computer" do not surprise anyone. However, the emergence of intelligent machines, which with great speed can calculate a great mathematical example or come into contact with any point on the planet, is closely related to the science of cybernetics. And for any knowledgeable person, "Norbert Wiener," "cybernetics," are two interrelated words. It is this man that society rightfully calls the "father" of this science.

short biography

Many biographers on the question: "Who is Norbert Wiener?", Without hesitation, will answer that he is the most vivid example of a child prodigy. A future father of cybernetics was born in America in Columbia, Missouri, in 1894. His father was a native of the Russian Empire (Grodno region). He was a very learned and well-read person. He taught at Harvard University literature and history of the Slavic languages. A little later he received the post of the head of the department.

From his earliest childhood, his father prepared a boy for a career as a scientist. Perhaps, from the age of three years, Norbert Wiener began his scientific career. A brief biography in most publications begins at this age. At that time the boy already knew how to read, write and even helped his father translate works by LN. Tolstoy. At the age of eight, he already skilfully reads Dante's works and the works of Darwin. His first scientific work he will write at that age, when his other peers will only begin to study the outline of sticks and hooks.

Not really attending classes in a normal secondary school (some sources claim that he ignored it altogether), the boy enters a prestigious college that graduates with honors ahead of schedule. At eighteen he defended his thesis at Harvard, and a few years later became a professor at several higher educational institutions.

In his autobiography, to the question: "Who is Norbert Wiener?" The scientist replies that he is a mathematician. From an early age, he was better suited to mathematical science, although he did not lose sight of humanitarian aspects in education.

Job

It seems to many that a scientist is always a quiet professor in round glasses, sitting in his office and working on some project. Who is Norbert Wiener, who was he? This person was significantly different from the "standard" scientist with the cabinet. In my life a short-sighted and slightly clumsy scientist managed to work on the construction site, at the military plant, and in the newspaper. He very much wanted to join the army, but was expelled from there due to problems with his vision.

He devoted most of his life to education, both his own and others. He works simultaneously in more than ten universities, at various departments. Teaches mathematics, logic, science, literature, social sciences. At the same time he independently studies foreign languages, he even learns Chinese and Japanese.

Theorist

Who is Norbert Wiener: a practical person or a theoretical scientist? He himself called himself a theoretician, preferred to think more and create scientific theories, proving them by facts. Together with the American scientist Claude Shannon, he develops a modern theory of computer science.

Surely everyone knows the concept of "bit". So this person once invented it, so that it would be easier to describe the digital code. A lot of work the scientist devoted to computer technology, probability theory and electromagnetic networks.

Cybernetics

But not the idea of creating a computer is known to the whole world this person. What Norbert Wiener is famous for is that he invented such a thing as cybernetics. It was he who began to develop science, the postulates of which allow us to create an artificial mind. The scientist represented cybernetics as an opportunity to transform the skills of animals, creating "training programs" for technology.

Wiener himself came up with this word, borrowing it from the works of ancient Greek scientists. In those days it meant "control of the ship," but Wiener transformed cybernetics into "smart machine management." He compared a man with a car, with a clockwork that recycles energy.

A book called "Cybernetics" was released in 1948 in America. At that time, the scientist was already fifty-four years old. However, labor, as many say, is not understood by everyone. To read this book and understand what it says, it is necessary to have deep knowledge in the field of mathematics, philosophy, technology and neurophysiology.

Man "in itself"

Surely any actor who will play the role of an enthusiastic and addicted scientist could borrow the image of Wiener. A typical botanist, with glasses and a small beard, a clumsy and awkward, diffused in communication with others and completely absorbed in his inner world and theories.

Eyewitnesses remembered that Wiener often, absorbed in his thoughts, even forgot where he was going and what he wanted to do. Once, when confronted with him in the alley, the student talked with the teacher, and then was puzzled by his question: "Do you remember where I went: from the dining room or into it?".