Dark Hero of the Information Age: in Search of Norbert Wiener the Father of Cybernetics

Citation

Vallée, R. (2006), "Dark Hero of the Information Age: in Search of Norbert Wiener the Father of Cybernetics", Kybernetes, Vol. 35 No. 1/2, pp. 239-240. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920610640344

This book by Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, published by Basic Books (New York, 2005), has for subtitle “In Search of Norbert Wiener, the Father of Cybernetics”. In 423 pages, with 34 photos, an important bibliography and many notes, it gives a new biography of Wiener. We already had on this subject, the book of Steve Heims, “John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death”, 1980, and that of Pesi R. Masani, “Norbert Wiener 1894‐1964”, 1990, not forgetting two books by Wiener himself: “Ex‐Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth”, 1953, and “I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy”, 1956. This new one has the originality to insist not only on the psychological side of the difficulties encountered by Wiener, often consequences of the attitude of his father who decided to have an infant prodigy and of his mother who was very scornful to the Jewish people, but also on the unsuspected influence of his family life. On the other side, the scientific point of view is not forgotten and presented with accuracy and clarity.

The first part has mainly to do with infancy, youth and early professional years of Wiener. Under his father's autocratic guidance “he began reading at three, reciting in Greek and Latin at five and German soon after” Then at nine, he took up algebra, geometry, and physics. At ten, he wrote a philosophical paper on “The theory of ignorance”, a subject which, in my opinion, is the most important of epistemology since ignorance can be found everywhere while knowledge is rare, if even it exists. Another interesting trait is his early interest in Jules Verne and H.G. Wells science fiction novels. In 1909, at the age 14, “with his father's blessing, Norbert registered at the Harvard Graduate School”. Here he felt a latent hostility, which engaged him to go to Cornell to continue his graduate work on philosophy. At last, in 1913, he got a PhD at Harvard. Here he did never succeed to obtain any academic appointment, instead, in 1919, he became instructor at MIT. There started his researches inspired by technical problems, grounded on such tools as Lebesgue integral, Gibbs statistics, Fourier transform, and giving rise to his study of Bownian movement and to “generalized harmonic analysis”. Then came war, a period of “disillusion and hurt, as he watched younger theorists and technicians pluck the fruits of his work”, years of anxiety about his wife's german sympathies, but also time of the birth of the idea of cybernetics.

In the next part we see the maturation of cybernetics under the auspices of the Josiah Macy Jr Foundation, the foundation of the “Teleological Society” also known as the “Cybernetics Group”, involving, among many others, Norbert Wiener, Warren S. McCulloch, Walter Pitts. This collaboration proved to be difficult. A negligence of Pitts impeded the recognition of an anteriority of Wiener over Claude Shannon. Complex relations between McCulloch and the Wiener's family, involving scientific and non‐scientific matters, ended in 1951 with a rupture with McCulloch. This affected Wiener very much and was at the origin of an angina attack. Despite these difficulties Wiener published his famous “Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine” (first edition, Hermann et Cie, Paris, 1948) and also, in 1949, “Extrapolation, Interpolation and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series, with Engineering Applications”, nicknamed “The Yellow Peril” when it was classified in 1942. “Cybernetics” knew a tremendous success all over the scientific world. The authors give the names of some groups devoted to cybernetics which were created at this time: “In 1950, French scientists formed the first scientific association for cybernetics, fittingly called the “Cercle d'Etudes Cybernétiques” – Circle of Cybernetical Studies”. I may add, since I was its Founder, that the honorary President of this Circle was Louis de Broglie. Among its members were Dominique Dubarle (quoted by the authors for his paper “Vers la machine à gouverner – une nouvelle science: la cybernétique”, Le Monde, 1948), Benoît Mandelbrot (known for the theory of fractals).

The third and last part deals with Norbert Wiener as a scientist rebelling against “the subordination of those who ought to think to those who have the administrative power  … ”, promoting “ a society based on human values other than buying or selling”. He presented these ideas in “The Human Use of Human beings: Cybernetics and Society” (1950). He was considered suspect in the days of McCarthy's campaign. I have known him in these days, in the early 1950s, first in Paris, then, in the summer of 1954, in Cambridge and South Tamworth at Tamarack Cottage his country house. He worked at that time with Armand Siegel on statistics applied to quantum theory. As told to me he was considered not as “red” but “pink”. Anyway, after many difficulties, say the authors, FBI ceased to charge him for his opinions. Wiener had at that moment ten years to live. He wrote papers with Armand Siegel and also with Pesi R. Masani, two autobiographical books (quoted above) and “God&Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion” (published posthumously in 1964). Wiener died in Stockholm on 18 March 1964. Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman tell us that “God&Golem, Inc.” won the National Book Award for Science, Philosophy and Religion and that Wiener garnered an array of eponymous awards: the Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics (American Mathematical Society and Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics), the Norbert Wiener Medal for Cybernetics (American Society for Cybernetics), the Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility (Computer Professionals for Social responsibility). We may add to the list the Norbert Wiener Memorial Gold Medal (World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics).

This excellent and original book is of great interest not only for the neophytes, but also for those who had the privilege to know him or the opportunity to study his works.