Classic management. Wiener Norbert.

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Wiener Norbert (1894-1964), Wiener, Norbert.

1. Introduction
2. The main contribution
3. Practical application of basic ideas

Brief biographical information

Main works

(1948)
The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (1950)
EX-PRODIGY. (1952)
I am a Mathematician (1956)
God and Golem, Inc. (1964)
Invention: The Care and Feeding Of Ideas (1993)

Summary

Norbert Wiener was the father of cybernetics, a new science that arose at the junction of several scientific disciplines shortly after the end of World War II. Cybernetics established links between the science of the period of hostilities and post-war social science through the development of a noncase and environmental vision of both physical and biological systems. In their cybernetics, N. Wiener has demonstrated the presence of an invariant in the mechanisms of management and transmission of information of living beings and machines. Cybernetic principles provided, on the one hand, the foundations for creating many technical devices, such as radar, information networks, computers and artificial limbs, and on the other hand, they helped develop fundamental approaches to the study of such phenomena of the living world as learning, memory and intelligence. Cyber \u200b\u200bideas were used and received further development in management sciences, as well as in a broader sociological context.

1. Introduction

Norbert Vinerpedal unusual mathematical abilities and already at the age of 19 managed to get a doctorate of Philosophy at Harvard University (Harvard University.). The main part of his scientific career was associated with the work at the MassachusettsTrum Institute of Technology (MTI), where he, holding a professor of mathematics, wrote 11 books and over 200 articles for various scientific journals. From the first early ones dedicated to the creation of the mathematical theory of Brownian movement and mathematical models for quantum mechanics of work (in the 1920s - the most important problems of theoretical physics), N. Wiener showed himself as a wonderful mathematician, sowing to supplement the natural science content of the work of the original personal philosophy. For N. Wiener, mathematical theories were special conditions in which common philosophical ideas were concretized. His philosophical approach meant a single view of the world and, among other things in it, the world in which everything is interrelated, but in which the most general principles have elements of uncertainty (Heims., 1980: 140, 156). Such a holistic (or environmental) vision of nature proposed by scientists who worked in the first half of the XX century., Much averaged his time.

2. The main contribution

During the Second World War, the US research projects gave priority to work on a long-term project of creating an atomic bomb, as well as to solve a more urgent task of finding ways to destroy German bombers. While the main work on the creation of an atomic bomb was carried out in Los Alamos, research methods for detecting, maintaining and destroying aircraft was carried out mainly inMIT.Where N. Winner answered the development of the mathematical apparatus necessary for solving this problem. In collaboration with a young engineer Julian Bigelow N. Wiener developed a sufficiently general mathematical theory of predicting the best options for the future on the basis of incomplete information about the past. This theory contributed to a revolutionary coup in the practice of creating a means of communication and laid the foundations for the modern statistical theory of communication and information (Heims., 1980: 184). At that time (1940s), this theory immediately led to a significant improvement in the methods of tracking aircraft using radars and began to be successfully applied when creating noise filtering devices for radio receivers, telephones and many other general purpose devices (Wiener., 1993). This work was carried out by N. Wiener about at the same time when, regardless of him, Claude Shannon created his "mathematical theory of information transfer" (Shannon. And. Weaver, 1949).
One of the most interesting aspects of the confluence converse problem was associated with the creation of the feedback contour: information from the radar screen was used to calculate the amendments necessary when controlling the lesions weapons to increase the accuracy of the guidance, and then the effectiveness of these adjustments was tracked and displayed using the radar, then this new Information was again used to clarify the guidance of weapons to the goal, etc. If the calculations in this process were carried out automatically, then such a system worked as self-governed; If the calculations were not automated, the whole system as a whole, including people acting in it, was also self-directed. The most important guess of N. Wiener was precisely the fact that similar feedback mechanisms are used in all kinds of targeted activities, for example, in the case when we take an ordinary pencil from the table. Here, information perceived mainly through observation is continuously used to manage our arms muscles up to the moment of successful solving the task. N. Viner discussed his ideas in this area with the Mexican physiologist Arturo Rosenblyuet, who assumed that some of the usual disorders of the nervous system, known as the attacksia (violation of coordination of movements), can be explained from the point of view of the inaccuracy of the feedback system. If you offer a cigarette to a person suffering from the attack, then he will turn his hand further than it is required to take it from the table. Next, it will make useless movements in the opposite direction, and then again in the initial, so its actions will remind the oscillating process that does not lead to the target.
The idea that, with the help of mathematical formulas, some parallels between mechanical devices and alive organisms can be found, received support from many representatives of various sciences. On the eighth of March 1946, a twenty-one prominent scientist was gathered in one of the New York hotels to discuss such ideas. This meeting was the first of the series of scientific conferences organized by sponsorship supportMacy Foundation. - In the course of which the basic principles of the new science of cybernetics were formulated. A group of scientists regularly participating in these meetings in 1946-1953. Received the name "Cybernetic Group" (Heims., 1991). It included such scientists as an outstanding mathematician John von Neumann, a psychoneurologist Warren McCullah, a specialist in the field of public sciences Gregory Bateson, as well as Arturo Rosenblyuet and Norbert Wiener himself.

In his classic bookCybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and The Machine ("Cybernetics or control and communications in animals and machines") (1948) N. Wiener identified and described the foundations of cybernetics - one of the youngest scientific disciplines of the XX century. Used by N. Winner The name of science goes back to the ancient Greeks and means in the literal sense of the "Art of Management". When His choosing N. Wiener wanted to emphasize the recognition of the fact that the first dedicated to the action of feedback mechanisms was an article about Clark Maxwell regulators (1868) and that the term "regulator" (governor) comes from a distorted Latin wordgubernatur.. Plato used this term to refer to the science of managing ships while in the XIX century. French scientist Andre Ampere borrowed it to determine the science of managing.
Demonstrating the fact of the existence of fundamental similarities between control mechanisms used in various sciences, cybernetics was able to eliminate the old philosophical contradiction between the vitalism and the mechanism, according to which biological and mechanical systems had a fundamentally different nature. In fact, cybernetics, in accordance with the philosophical position of N. Wiener, allowed a much broader classification of systems, and thus showed its interdisciplinary character (Wiener., 1993: 84). Useful criterion for carrying out this classification is the concept of complexity, in accordance with which the basic interest of cybernetics is to study complex (that is, so complex that they cannot be described in detailed and detailed form) and stochastic (as opposed to deterministic) systems (Beer., 1959: 18). Typical examples of such systems are the economy, human brain and a commercial company.
To explore the mechanism of management and information transfer in such systems N. Winner and his colleagues developed the concepts of feedback, homeostasis and "black box". Although the feedback mechanism was reviewed by us earlier, it is useful to analyze its main characteristics in more detail. Each feedback loop implies the use of incoming information (for example, temperature measurements) and exit (for example, data on the operation of the heater); In addition, it is essential - information at the entrance is experiencing an impact of output, for example, the power of the heater will determine the readings removed from the thermometer, which, in turn, will affect the signal on the inclusion or on the disconnection of the heater. Thus, there is continuous control over the discrepancy between the desired and real situation. If the control mechanism acts in the direction of reducing this discrepancy, then such feedback is called negative (as in the case of a thermostat); If the feedback contributes to an increase in the discrepancy, it is called positive (as in the case of a mechanical brake, which fixes the initial movement of the driver's hand and then enhances them until the moving car can stop).

In his book Cybernetics. ("Cybernetics") (1948) N. Wiener showed that feedback mechanisms are present in many of the systems that have a fundamentally different nature of systems - from mechanical to economic and sociological to biological. A special, which is essential for maintaining life, the type of feedback is present in the so-called homoeostase phenomenon. The classic biological example is homeostasis temperature of blood, allowing to maintain the temperature of the body almost unchanged, despite the movement of the body from the cold room into warm. Thus, a gomeostat is called a regulatory device, to maintain some variables in the specified limits. Thus, a typical example of a homeostat is created by J. Watt a steam pressure regulator in a locomotive designed to control its speed at different load values. It is extremely important here to understand that the output of the adjustable variable for the desired limits (when the speed of the locomotive turns out to be too fast or too slow) itself performs the role of feedback (when appropriate closing or opening valves in the WATTA regulator). In other words, as long as the mechanism itself functions, its feedback will also work properly. This output is of great importance, since it implies that the feedback of the regulator will always be guaranteed to compensate for not only this type of perturbations, but also perturbations of any types (Beer., 1959: 29). This special property of control systems is commonly called ultrasound (Ashby., 1956).
Now we should be clear that the concept of "management" in cybernetics does not reduce the naive idea of \u200b\u200bthe process of coercion, but implies the implementation of self-regulation.
Another important that was distributed in many other sciences the concept of cybernetics is a black box. Cybernetics, as noted above, is mainly engaged in the study of management mechanisms and information transfer in complex stochastic systems. For the study of the cybernetics management process, the concepts of feedback and homeostasis are used; To analyze the probabilistic characteristics of the systems, they apply statistical information theory; Finally, the study of the complexity of systems they are carried out using the concept of a black box. Representing the system as a black box, cybernetics by default agree with cognitive limitations of your understanding of a huge number of possible states available to a complex system at any time. However, at the same time, they recognize the possibilities of manipulating some input signals and observing some results of the system at the output. If the output signals are continuously compared with the specific desired values, then some system reactions can be determined from the point of view of their effect on the input signals of the black box in order to save the system "in the controlled state".
When modeling the system in the form of a black box, four sets of variables are identified: a set of possible system states (S.); A set of perturbations capable of affecting its current state (R); A set of reactions to these perturbations (R.); A set of targets that determine acceptable states in accordance with the established criteria (T.). It is believed that the system is in the "controlled state" if at any time its condition corresponds to the set stateT.. With this model, an extremely important cybernetic principle is established: if the system is in the controlled state, it is necessary that for any perturbation seeking to derive a system from admissible states, there was such a reaction that after its implementation would lead the system to one of the states from the aggregate.T.. This principle was developed by English Cyber \u200b\u200bRoss Eshbi and got the name of the "law of the required manifold", usually formulated as follows: "Only a variety can absorb diversity" (Ashby., 1956).
N. Winner received experience with computing devices at the very beginning of his scientific career (Wiener., 1993). Back in the 1920s, long before the creation of the first computers, it developed a method for calculating a specific group of integrals by passing the beam through special filters and the subsequent measurement of the intensity of the received light flux. This new device was, in fact, an analog computer, and got the name of the "Wiener Integrap". Approximately twenty years later, in 1940, N. Wiener sent a memorandum to the American government, in which he described five characteristics, which the future computer had to be possessed: it should have been digital, and not analog; use binary number system; be created on the basis of electronic elements; Its logical scheme was to meet the principles on which the Turing machine was created; The computer for storing information should be used magnetic tape. Although this memorandum was ignored by government officials for many years, some of his ideas nominated independently of N. Wiener by other scientists, formed the basis of the creation of modern high-speed computers.

3. Practical application of basic ideas

Many currently associated with creating cybernetics early studies were devoted to the design and creation of various devices. The electronic skull models created by the British neuropathologist with Gray Walter were clearly demonstrated that the combining of several simple mechanisms using a properly selected feedback makes it possible to implement almost the same complex behaviors, as well as in living systems. At about the same time, English Cybernetic Gordon Pask has developed a training machine, putting the beginning of the process that led to the writing and publication of his famousConversational Theory. ("Conversion (conversational) theory") (1975). The car of the Pask reflected the information that was to be learned from the trained person the answer to a given question and used it as a feedback signal for improving the learning process. Thus, this continuously adaptable to the possibilities of the student can be used to teach. N. Wiener himself in the 1950s and early 1960s. I paid a lot of attention to the creation of devices for replacing amputated limbs, seeking to reproduce their tactile sensitivity. His joint work with the group of orthopedic surgeons, neurologists and engineers (although it was unsuccessful in those years) outlined the way for the subsequent creation of a prosthesis called the Boston hand.
This work with various devices had a double target: (1) to demonstrate the possibility of practical use of cybernetic ideas and (2) to promote the study of complex such nervous system of human system, as well as a better understanding of such properties of living beings as learning, memory and intelligence. As an example of the study of the intellect N. Wiener in the second edition of his book about cybernetics (Wiener., 1961) explained in detail how to create a car capable of playing chess at an acceptable high level. At present, almost any PC is able to defeat almost any amateur chess player. Unfortunately, as a result, including the initial attempts of the practical application of cybernetic ideas, the entire new scientific discipline as a whole has become associated with real equipment, especially with computers, despite the fact that its principles still used in other disciplines.
In the field of management theory, the most significant development of N. Wiener's ideas was carried out by Stafford Bir, which simulates a company in the form of a set of interrelated homeostates and using the ESHBI law about the desired diversity, created a viable system model - MJE (Beer., 1979, 1981, 1985). The MSH, which has become an important achievement of the direction of cybernetics, which ranked the name of management cybernetics, turned out to be a useful tool for diagnosing and even designing complex systems - from small firms to large international companies and local governments before the state economy as a whole (Espejo. And. Harnden., 1989).
In the late 1970s. Some specialists in the field of social sciences tried to develop and enrich cybernetics due to its association with sociology and the creation of the so-called "sociocibernetics". However, they encountered some problems on this path, which turned out to be extremely difficult for them (Geyer. And. Zouwen., 1986). Only subsequent work in the field of study of the biological aspects of the process of cognition (see for example,Maturana. And. Varela, 1987; Foerster., 1984) laid the foundations for the successful development of social cybernetics. This science, known as "second-order cybernetics" (Foerster., 1979) is an example of an unjectivistic approach to a scientific research that emphasizes the role of the observer in social systems.
Thus, second-order cybernetics, emphasizing the importance of individual independence and studying continuous processes with which they create a general reality, indicates the possibility of a new paradigm in social studies, which could provide - turning to the name of one of N. Wiener's books - more Human use of human beings. "

Introduction

2. Cybernetics of Norbert Wiener

Conclusion

Cybernetics is associated with opened systems, but only those who have feedback. POSITIVE Feedback - the behavior of the system enhances external influences (for example, avalanche). Negative connection is the behavior of the system in which external influences are weakened. This link stabilizes the processes in the system (refrigerator, thermostat and all modern information devices). Homeostatic bond - when the external impact is reduced by the system to zero (homeostasis - maintaining a constant body temperature).

One of the values \u200b\u200bof the Greek word kebernetes, from which its name is happening, - steering. Cybernetics is taken to communicate with the American Mathematics Norbert Winner.

Norbert Wiener in the 50-60s. Identified cybernetic as a science on managing links in machines and biological systems. The behavior of open-bonding systems is described as an organized targeted behavior, which leads to a decrease in entropy. By the 60s, it turned out that for real systems a little to take into account effective system management, and it is necessary to take into account the self-organization of the system, that is, it was necessary to find a link between the effective management of the system and the specifics of the development of the real system.

The history of cybernetics has 19 years old, the official story, which began Norbert Wiener, Professor of Mathematics Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when he published his famous book "Cybernetics, or management and contact in an animal and a car" in 1948. Of course, this story had its own prehistory, which was built by the later authors to Plato himself, but he was talking about cybernetics everywhere only after the Wiener sensation. The seemingly sensation at first, cybernetics now turned into an extensive influential industry of world science.

Norbert Wiener has already graduated from his earthly works. It was one of the most brilliant and paradoxical minds of the capitalist West, deeply concerned about the contradictions of the nuclear century, tensely reflecting on the fate of a person in the era of the unprecedented power of science and technology. "Human use of human beings" is so named his second cybernetic book. He felt the wreck of old liberal humanism, but, like Einstein, I did not find the way to new values. Hence, his pessimism, dressed in clothes of Stoicism; He feared the role of Cassandra.

He left behind a large scientific inheritance, complex and controversial, in many ways a controversial, in many ways an interesting and stimulating. This legacy requires a thoughtful, critical, philosophical approach, distant from the extremes of denial and exaggeration, which so often heard. And in this legacy, the first place occupies "Cybernetics" - the book, proclaiming the birth of new science.

This is the main book of Wiener, the result of all his scientific activity. Wiener called her "the description of his scientific baggage." It is the most important material for the characteristic of the scientist and at the same time a monument to the early, romantic pore of cybernetics, "period of storms and onslaught". But she did not lose scientific significance and may be unspecified for an inquisitive researcher and in new conditions when cybernetics, winning the place under the sun, is concerned about the rational organization conquered.

1. Norbert Wiener, Life and Activity

Norbert Wiener was born on November 26, 1894 in Colombia, Missouri, in the family of the Jewish immigrant. His father, Leo Wiener (1862-1939), a native of Belostok, then belonging to Russia, in his youth studied in Germany, and then moved over the ocean, to the United States. There, after different adventures, he began with a prominent philologist. In Colombia, he was already a professor of modern languages \u200b\u200bin the University of Missuria, later consisted of the Slavic languages \u200b\u200bof the oldest in the United States Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston. In the same American Cambridge in 1915, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MTI) was settled, one of the main highest technical schools of the country, which later worked and the Son. Leo Wiener was a follower of Tolstoy and his translator into English. As a scientist, he showed very wide interests and did not retreat before risky hypotheses. These of its qualities were inherited by Norbert Winner, which differ, however, apparently, greater methodicity and depth.

According to family legend, Winners come from the famous Jewish scientist and theology of Moses Maimonide from Cordoba (1135-1204), Life-Medica at the court of Sultan Saladina Egypt. Norbert Wiener proudly responded about this legend, not a trustee, however, quite for her accuracy. Especially admired his versatility of the Maymonide.

The future founder of Cybernetics was in childhood "Wunderkind", a child with early awakened abilities. This was largely promoted by the Father, engaged in him by his own program. Young Norbert seven years read Darwin and Dante, eleven - graduated from high school, fourteen - higher education institution, TafTS College. Here he received his first scientific degree - bachelor of art.

Then he studied at Harvard University already as a graduate student (Graduate Student) and seventeen years became a master of arts, and eighteen, in 1913, a doctor of philosophy in the specialty "Mathematical Logic". The title of Philosophy in this case is not only a tribute to tradition, since Wiener first prepared himself to a philosophical career and only subsequently gave preference to mathematics. At Harvard, he studied philosophy under the leadership of J. Santyana and J. Royce (whose name the reader would find in the "cybernetics"). The philosophical formation of Wiener has already affected the development of a new science project and in the books that he wrote about her.

Harvard University granted a young doctor a scholarship for a trip to Europe. In 1913-1915 Wiener visits the University of Cambridge in England and Gottingen in Germany, but in connection with the war returns to America and finishes his educational trip to Colombian University in New York. In the English Cambridge, Wiener was engaged in the famous B. Russell, who at the beginning of the century was leading authority in the field of mathematical logic, and J. X. Hardy, famous mathematics, a specialist in the theory of numbers. Subsequently, Wiener wrote: "Russell inspired me a very reasonable thought that a person going to specialize in mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics could know something from the most mathematics." In Gottingen, Wiener was engaged in the largest German mathematics D. Hilbert, listened to the lectures of the philosopher E. Gusserly.

In 1915, the service began. Wiener received a place of assistant at the Department of Philosophy in Harvard, but only for a year. In search of happiness, he changed a number of places, was a journalist, wanted to go to the soldiers. However, he, apparently, was enough and did not feel necessary. Finally, with the assistance of mathematics F.V. Osgood, Father's friend, Wiener got a job in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1919, Wiener was appointed by the teacher (Instructor) of the Department of Mathematics MTI and since then, all his life remained an employee of the institute. In 1926, Wiener married Margarita Enhenan, an American of German origin.

Years 1920-1925 Wiener considered his formation for years in mathematics. He discovers the desire to solve complex physical and technical tasks by the methods of modern abstract mathematics. He is engaged in the theory of Brownov Movement, tries his strength in the theory of potential, develops a generalized harmonic analysis for the needs of communication theory. Academic career proceeds slowly, but successfully.

In 1932, Winner-Full Professor. He conquers a name in the scientists of America and Europe's circles. Under his leadership the dissertation is written. He publishes a number of books and big memoirs in mathematics: "Generalized Harmonic Analysis", "Tauberov Theorem", "Fourier Integral and Some of its applications" and others. A joint study with the German mathematician E. Gopf (or Hopf) on the radiation equilibrium of stars introduces Science "Viener Gopfa equation". Other collaboration, the monograph "Fourier transformation in an integrated area" was written in collaboration with the English mathematician R. Pelie. This book was published under tragic circumstances: even before her graduation, the Englishman died in the Canadian Rocky Mountains during the ski riding. Gives Wiener Dan and Technical Creativity, in the company with Chinese scientists Yu.V. Lee and V. Bush, a famous designer of analog computing machines. In 1935-1936 Wiener was the vice-president of the American Mathematical Society.

In the 20s and 30s, Wiener repeatedly happens in Europe, tying extensive scientific acquaintances, for a long time he lives in Cambridge and Gottingen, participates in international mathematical congresses. Among him familiar M. Frechet, J. Adamar, N. Bor, M. Born, J. Holden, J. Bernal, and others. In 1935-1936 Wiener visits China as a "travel professor" and lectures at the University of Zinghua. Travel and personal scientific communications Wiener attached great importance in his scientific development.

The year of trips to China - 1935 - Wiener considered an important border of his life, the beginning of scientific maturity. He was forty years old, he achieved recognition and lasting position in science. "My works began to bear fruit - I managed not only to publish a number of significant independent works, but also to develop a certain concept that it was already impossible to ignore in science." The development of this concept led to Wiener to a significant project of cybernetics.

Back in the 1930s, Wiener comes closer to the Mexican scientist Arthur Rosenblut, an employee of the famous American physiologist. Kennon, and takes part in a free methodological seminar organized by Rosenblut and uniting representatives of different sciences. This seminar played an important role in pre-preparation of Wiener Cybernetics. With the story about him and the real book begins. Acquaintance with the Mexican physiologist introduced Wiener into the world of biology and medicine; In his mind began to strengthen the idea of \u200b\u200ba wide synthetic approach to the problems of modern science.

Currently, the words "Internet" or "computer" no one surprise. However, the emergence of smart machines, which with great speed can count a large mathematical example or come into contact with any point on the planet, closely connected with science cybernetic. And for any knowledgeable person "Norbert Wiener", "Cybernetics" are two interrelated words. It is this person that the society rightly calls the "father" of this science.

short biography

Many biographer scientists on the question: "Who is Norbert Wiener?", Not thinking, will answer that he is the most vivid example of the Wunderkinda. The future father of Cybernetics in America in the town of Colombia appeared on the state in Missouri, in 1894. His father was a led from the Russian Empire, he was a man very educated and read. He taught in the literature and history of Slavic languages. A little later received the position of the head of the department.

From the earliest childhood, his father prepared a boy to a career of a scientist. Perhaps, from the age of three years, Norbert Wiener has already begun its scientific path. A brief biography in most publications begins precisely from this age. At that time, the boy was already able to read, write and even helped the father of translating the works of L.N. Tolstoy. In the eight of the age, he already skillfully reads the works of Dante and the works of Darwin. He will write his first scientific work at that time, when his other peers will only begin to study the strokes of sticks and hooks.

I really did not attend classes in the usual high school (some sources claim that he ignored it at all), the boy enters the prestigious college, who ends with honors before the term. At eighteen, she defends his thesis at Harvard, and in a few years it becomes a professor in several higher educational institutions.

In his autobiography on the question: "Who is Norbert Wiener?" The scientist replies that he is a mathematician. From the early years, it was better for him to be mathematical science, although the humanitarian moments he also did not lose sight of education.

Work

Many seems to be a scientist - always a quiet professor in round glasses sitting in his office and working on some project. Who is Nubert Wiener, who he was? This person was significantly different from the "Standard" scientist with the Cabinet. In his life, a shorter and slightly awkward scientist managed to work on a construction site, and at a military factory, and in the newspaper. I really wanted to the army, but was expelled from there because of the problems with vision.

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

Theorist

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

Surely everyone is familiar with the concept of "bit". So this particular person once came up with it to make it easier to describe the digital code. A lot of works scientist devoted computational technology, probability theory and electromagnetic networks.

Cybernetics

But this person is not planned to create a computing machine for the whole world. What is famous for Norbert Wiener, so it invented that invented such a thing as cybernetics. It was he who began to develop science whose postulates allow creating an artificial mind. The scientist represented cybernetics as the ability to convert skills and animal skills, creating "training programs" for technology.

Wiener himself came up with this word, borrowing him from the works of ancient Greek scientists. In those days, this meant "ship management", but Wiener has converted cybernetics to "managing smart machines". He compared the person with the machine, with the watch mechanism that processes energy.

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

Man "in itself"

Surely any actor who will have to play the role of an enthusiastic and fond of scientist could borrow the image of Wiener. A typical nerd, glasses and a clina's beard, awkward and clumsy, scattered in communicating with others and completely absorbed by its inner world and theories.

Eyewitnesses remembered that Wiener often, immersed in his thoughts, even forgot where he was going and what he wanted to do. Once, faced with him on the alley, the student talked to the teacher, and then he was puzzled by his question: "And you do not remember where I was going: from the dining room or in her?".

Wiener Norbert.

(born in 1894 - mind. In 1964)

An outstanding American scientist is the founder of cybernetics. The world fame Vainer brought his works in the field of mathematical logic and theoretical physics: work on the theory of potential, harmonic functions, rows and transformations of Fourier, Tauber theorems, general harmonic analysis, theory of random processes, electrical networks and computing equipment.

Usually, Professor Wiener came to the audience without any records and abstract lectures. At first he was noisy and vigorously an orced, then he turned to the board, not even going to declare the topic, and began to write something with chalk. "Although I was usually sitting in the first row, it was difficult for me to disassemble what he writes," said Chinese physicist for many years later, who studied at Wiener in the Massachusette Institute of Technology. - Most other students did not see anything at all. "

In the process of letters with chalk on the board, the lecturer muttered some words comprising an evaluation written, for example: "Well, this definition is completely incorrect." And then quickly, quickly washed everything that managed to write, and started again. Finally, students could hear how he says: "While it seems to be correct." Only everyone was taken for the handles to write out something, how suddenly the professor was allocated again and began to write first. It was repeated in continuation of the whole lecture, and when the call rang, he, not saying goodbye and even looking at his listeners, was removed from the audience.

With such a tendency to death, Wiener was fairly vain and arrogant. The only thing that saved him from these shortcomings is an amazing ironiness. The legend says, as if he is credited with such phrases: "Professor is a person who can speak on any topic about fifty minutes." Or: "The best material model of the cat is another, and preferably the same cat" ...

The history of scientific search is one of the most exciting and dramatic plots in the literature. The main thing in it is not the formulas who understand the narrow circle of specialists, or technical parameters and characteristics, but a general dynamic picture of the study, relationships and feelings of people on a historic background, which is inevitably displayed in the principles of motivation and the specific goal of knowledge. The researcher is not a profession, but rather the state of mind and soul. You can be a physicist, while remaining the average man. And you can simply explore life in all its diverse manifestations. Being a researcher means to participate in the creation of an information shell of the Earth - the Noospheres, it means to live, realizing their goals, the tasks and value of the acquired experience. Such a researcher was Norbert Wiener, who revolutionally changed the ideas about the role of information and related to her philosophical and psychological concepts.

The future "Father" of Cybernetics was born on November 26, 1894 in the city of Colombia, Missouri, in the family of the Jewish immigrant, a leaving from Russia. According to family legend, the roots of the kind of Winners go to Moses Misonide from Cordoba - Life-Medica Sultan Saladin of the Egyptian, famous scientist and theologian. Father of Norbert, Leo Wiener, a native of Belostok, a small town in Belarus, in his youth studied in Germany and spent quite stormy, full adventure youth. He was a convinced follower of Lion Tolstoy and one of the first of his translators into English. By the time of the birth of Norbert, he has already become a professor of modern languages \u200b\u200bin the University of Missuria.

A few years later, the Winner family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here Leo Wiener taught Slavic languages \u200b\u200band literature at Harvard University. Its distinguished broad erudition and non-standard views. In particular, he put forward the hypothesis of the African origin of the civilizations of Peru and Mexico, which, however, did not meet support in scientific circles. But the most important nonstandarity of the views of Leo Wiener has affected the upbringing of his own son. Under the leadership of Father, Norbert quoted in memory of Darwin and Dante, in eleven - graduated from high school, in fourteen - the Higher Educational Institution of the Taft College and received the first in his life a degree of bachelor of art in his life. These years, Winner described in detail in his autobiographical book "Former Wunderkind."

Thus, the boy was well prepared for a brilliant academic career. Already at eighteen, he became a doctor of philosophy in the specialty "Mathematical Logic" in Cornell and Harvard Universities. In 1913, young Wiener journey in Europe, where he visited Cambridge in the UK and Gottingen in Germany, he listened to the lectures of Berran Russell, J. X. Hardy, David Gilbert, but in connection with the beginning of World War II, he had to return to America.

Since childhood, Norbert suffered from monstrous myopia. At times it seemed to him that he was just born in tremendous glasses. They were the subject of ridicule classmates and annoyance of teachers at school, quarrels with parents and eventually became the reason for the appearance of a whole "collection of clinical neurosis and mental illness". The glasses were a malicious reminder of his physical undevelopment, about a big head on disproportionately small shoulders, because of which peers nipped him "eggs", and about the inability to communicate with the opposite sex.

Norbert was constantly in a closed cycle of depression, repeated every three weeks. In 1915, he tried to get to the front, but did not pass a medical examination due to poor vision, and for five years after that he was pursued by a continuous series of failures. The young man tried to teach the University of Maine, wrote articles for the encyclopedia, worked as an assistant engineer, engaged in journalism, but every time a new type of activity ended in failure. So it lasted until 1919, when he finally got, not without the help of his father, the position of mathematics teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served "until the last days of his unlikely life," as stated in his biography.

A few years later, in 1926, there were big changes in the life of a young scientist: after a long period of courtship, he married Margaret Engerman and soon two daughters were born in each other. We must pay tribute to Margaret - she was a reliable friend, a nurse and hostess for his very difficult in the daily life of the spouse. They almost did not part and even during numerous and long trips to Europe and China, the family accompanied the professor. Communication with homely occurred on a strange mixture of English and German, and Norbert often used the "children's" endings, and his wife respectfully called the full name Margarita - also not in English at all. The life of the spouses was very closed, protected from external views, but the letters were preserved ... Vieren's neurosis began to appear to a lesser extent, but the phrase from the letter type "house begins to look empty, and the weather becomes more and more autumn ..." (New Hampshire, September 7, 1931) speaks about many ...

Cybernetics Father was famous for emergency forgetfulness. When one day his family moved to a new apartment, the wife put a leaflet in his wallet, where they recorded their new address, "Margaret perfectly understood that otherwise her husband could not find the road home. However, on the first day, when the next wonderful idea came to his work, he climbed into the wallet, pulled out a sheet with an address from there, wrote several formulas on his turnover, realized that the idea was wrong, and threw a piece of garbage basket.

In the evening, as if nothing had happened, he drove at his own address. When it was found that no one lives in the old house, he went out in full confusion to the street ... Suddenly, he dawned on, he approached the girl standing nearby and said: "Sorry, perhaps you remember me. I am Professor Wiener, and my family recently moved from here. Could you tell me where exactly? " The girl listened to him very carefully and replied: "Yes, Dad, Mom thought that you would forget it ..."

There are many similar jokes about the absentness of a brilliant scientist there are a great set. Here are just some of them. Once Norbert Wiener collided with his student near the university campus. They greeted and, the word for the word, were fascinated by the discussion of one interesting mathematical task. When Wiener finished explaining the ways to her decision, he suddenly looked guilty to the student and asked: "Sorry, and from which side I came here?" The student respectfully pointed the direction. "Yeah. So I have not eaten yet, "the professor stated with sadness ...

The administrator of the Faculty of Mathematics Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Phillis Blok recalled how Wiener loved visiting him in the office and to talk to him about all sorts of scientific matter for a long time. So it lasted for several years until the Mr. Blok's office moved to another room. And then the Wiener came to him again ... He introduced himself and met. "He did not remember that I am the same person," the block laughed, - with whom he often communicated. He remembered me only around the room in which I sat ... "

In some matters, the scientist was fundamental and even stubborn. One morning, one of his students was driving on the way to New Hampshire and saw an old car with a punctured tire, standing on the side of the road. Nearby, some kind of man was sitting and helplessly looked at all this household. In the unlucky driver, the student recognized the Wiener himself. When a young man stopped and tried to help, the professor first checked his account with him and agreed to accept help, as the test on mathematics was already obtained.

With age, the instability of the psyche of Norbert partially passed and, according to the testimony of many contemporaries, was transformed into a protective reaction, expressed in vanity and arrogance. In fairness it should be noted that the grounds for arrogance were more than enough. Professor Wiener has no little invented a new science - cybernetics. The appearance of the book of the same name in 1948 instantly turned it "from a working-worker, which uses certain authority in its special area, in something like a figure of social importance." Because his cybernetics is to a greater degree of science of living organisms, man and society than cars.

In the 20-30s. Wiener again chaired in Europe in order to improve the qualifications: He studied the logic under the leadership of B. Russell in Cambridge, mathematics - in Göttingen at D. Gilbert, met N. Bor, M. Borne, J. Adamar and other well-known scientists of the 20th century. Norbert himself spoke of his need for permanent education as follows: "When I stopped learning at least a minute, it seemed to me that I stop breathing. It was akin to blunt instinct. "

The surroundings belonged to the Winera as a real "crazy professor" - the ending of now the type, for the first time, brilliantly described by the Jew is true. Norbert taught, writing articles and books. His name has more and more acquired fame in science. In the theory of radiation equilibrium stars, the equation of Wiener - Hopf appeared. He read a course of lectures at the University of Beijing Cynhua and participated in the creation of first analog computing machines in America.

With the beginning of World War II in the Pentagon, they remembered Wiener. No, he was not sent to shoot on enemies from a rifle or manage the radar - Norbert, without leaving the native institute department, engaged in the development of a new model for managing air defense. In the process of working on the mathematical apparatus for anti-aircraft fire systems, the scientist first suggested refuse to practice fire on individual purposes, especially air, since in a real battlefield it was almost useless. It can be said that the concept of "massive fire" is quite terrible in its essence, but, from a mathematical point of view, absolutely the right invention - it is obliged to the Winera. By the way, he himself did not like to emphasize about this period of his research activities, since he always considered himself a pacifist.

In the same tense military situation, the first sketches arose that over time became new science. It was then that Norbert first faced the fact that the car should perform complex actions to predict the behavior of the target, replacing the gunner, and drew attention to the role of inverse ties in the technique and living organisms. It was very productive to acquaint him with Mexican physiologist Dr. Arthur Rosenblut, which took place in 1945-1947, when Wiener worked in the Cardiology Institute in Mexico City.

Comparison of knowledge from the field of medicine, physiology and mathematics and allowed Norbert Vinera to formulate a draft new scientific direction. The idea was to create a single applied science examining the processes of storage and processing information, management and control. For this science, Wiener offered the name "Cybernetics", which received general recognition. Naturally, the specific content of this new knowledge area is not the creation of one Wiener. A no less role was played in the formation of cybernetics, for example, Channon's ideas. But the venture undoubtedly belongs to the leading role in the propaganda value of cybernetics in the entire system of human knowledge.

The term "cybernetics" itself comes from the Greek "feed" and was first applied by Wiener in the current sense in 1947. The same Greek root, distorted in Latin writing, formed the word "Government" in English, and in the Russian "governor".

It is important to note that the full name of the superior book of Wiener looks like this - "Cybernetics, or management and communication in an animal and machine", and the subsequent software work out under the name "Human use of human beings, or cybernetics and society". Thus, cybernetics - to a greater degree of science of living organisms, man and society than cars. The car is rather a tool and a model in common cybernetics, and not a subject of study, however, recently, the accents have shifted somewhat somewhat. The book itself is read as an exciting novel, although saturated with terminology and formulas. Wiener could be a good writer, but became a brilliant scientist.

At the end of World War II, Wiener, regardless of the Soviet mathematics A. N. Kolmogorov, developed the theory of interpolation and extrapolating stationary random processes. In addition, he developed for such processes the theory of their "filtering", which has been widely used.

Numerous congresses, performances and trips were added to the teaching and tense work on books and articles. Wiener collaborated with the development teams of the first American digital computing machines. In 1953 he spoke with a lecture tour in India, and in 1960 he even came to the Soviet Union and spoke at the Polytechnic Museum with a lecture on brainwaves. Returning to the USA, the scientist highly appreciated the level of development of Soviet science: "They lag behind us in the equipment - not hopeless, but a little. They are ahead of us in the development of automation theory. "

For scientist, the highest achievement is not another title or premium, but the creation of a new scientific direction. And if during the life of the author, new science begins to bear fruit and excites the consciousness of contemporaries, then this is the greatest happiness. The wine view is incredibly lucky. Although the case, of course, not only in luck.

The concept of cybernetics was born from the synthesis of many scientific directions. First, as a general approach to the description and analysis of the actions of living organisms and computing machines or other machines. Secondly, from observing analogies between the behavior of communities of living organisms and human society and the ability to describe them through the general theory of management and information. Finally, from the synthesis of the theory of information transfer and statistical physics, which led Wiener to the most important discovery that connects the amount of information and negative entropy in the system ...

In January 1964, Norbert Wiener was awarded the highest award for the American scientist - the national medal "For scientific achievements". At a solemn lunch in the White House dedicated to this event, US President Lindon Johnson turned to a professor with such words: "Your contribution to science is surprisingly universal, your view has always been absolutely original, you are a stunning embodiment of the symbiosis of pure mathematics and applied scientist." It must be said that during the pronouncement of this phrase, Wiener suddenly began to be loudly blurred, and then he asked for a long time for his neighbors, which said this young gentleman.

In the crowd of energetic and cheerful people, he looked lost, as if trying to remember something all the time. His appearance could cause pity if the surrounding did not understand that he was truly great. Ahead of the scientist had a few years of hard work, but he had already touched eternity and even became part of it. It was essentially no longer here, among vigorous and healthy men who seemed to be an important event in their lives. In fact, the most important events occur not at official techniques, but in silence and loneliness of sleepless nights.

Drying shell, carrying physical suffering, the wine view was no longer needed. The concentrated clutch of the information has long been ready to tear away from the sensitive, but weakened and not accompanying his physical carrier and dissolve in the infinite ocean of ideas. He was already waiting for his liberation, with whom unlimited possibilities of knowledge and insights were to come. Two months later, he will dissolve in the information streams of the universe, leaving each of the Messages remaining on Earth: "Life is an island" here-now "in the dying world. The process, by which we anticipate the flow of destruction and decline, is called homeostasis. We continue to live in a very specific environment that we carry with you until the destruction becomes prevailing over the process of our own recovery. Then we die. "

Brilliant scientist, "Father" Cybernetics Norbert Wiener died in Stockholm on March 19, 1964. He was only 69 years old. For his life, he wrote at least one great book - "Cybernetics", invented more than 10 computer terms, which were still used, taught thousands of students and published many works on mathematical analysis, probability theories, electrical networks and computing technology.

Norbert kitchen found everyone, everyone was approved. It remains to find an actor to the role of Professor Hansen, who came to Leningrad to study Dostoevsky. With foreigners, we had a problem in the cinema. In the Soviet cinema of foreigners, as a rule, the Baltines were playing - Latvians,

Norbert Alien played a correspondent of the German newspaper "Stern" My friend Norbert Kukhent (he played the Danish professor Hansen in the film "Autumn Marathon"). In the stationery store, where Nastya works, the foreigner comes and buys the desktop bust of Karl Marx, which

Wiener Norbert (born in 1894 - mind. In 1964) an outstanding scientist is the founder of cybernetics. The world fame Vainer brought his work in the field of mathematical logic and theoretical physics: work on the theory of potential, harmonic functions, rows and

Wiener Neustadt column of studebeckers with a breeze for the first time mpleting us to the East, and not to the West, but to Leningrad - no much - 4000 kilometers! But on American cars, our path was short-lived: 30 kilometers of the column passed by the town of ENS spread in the hollow

Wiener Norbert (born in 1894 - mind. In 1964) an outstanding American scientist is the founder of cybernetics. The world fame Vainer brought his work in the field of mathematical logic and theoretical physics: work on the theory of potential, harmonic functions, rows and

Artificial Reason Norbert Wiener (Norbert Wiener) (November 26, 1894, Colombia - March 18, 1964, Stockholm, Sweden) The professor entered the audience and did not rush to the department. He pulled out a handkerchief and began to vigorously clean his nose. He was noisy and sharply thrown out air then one then

Arturo Rosenblutu,

My comrade for science

FOR MANY YEARS.

Norbert Wiener and his "Cybernetics"

(from the translation editor)

The history of the century is done in our eyes. With amazement, we look at strange goddes, grew up on recent wastemen, and then get used to them quickly, catching out of them and rush further, to new central skyscrapers.

The history of cybernetics has 19 years, official history, which began Norbert Wiener, professor of mathematics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when published in 1948 his famous book "Cybernetics, or management and an animal and machine". Of course, this story had its own prehistory, which was built by the later authors to Plato himself, but he was talking about cybernetics everywhere only after the Wiener sensation. The opportunity at first only sensation, cybernetics currently turned into an extensive and influential industry of world science.

Norbert Wiener has already graduated from his earthly works. It was one of the most brilliant and paradoxical minds of the capitalist West, deeply concerned about the contradictions of the nuclear century, tensely reflecting on the fate of a person in the era of the unprecedented power of science and technology. "Human use of human beings" is so named his second cybernetic book. He felt the wreck of old liberal humanism, but, like Einstein and a number of other representatives of Western thought, did not find the path to new values. Hence, his pessimism, dressed in clothes of Stoicism; He feared the role of Cassandra.

He left behind a large scientific inheritance, complex and controversial, in many ways a controversial, in many ways an interesting and stimulating. This legacy requires a thoughtful, critical, philosophical approach, distant from the extremes of denial and exaggeration, which so often heard. And in this legacy, the first place occupies "Cybernetics" - the book, proclaiming the birth of new science.

This is the main book of Wiener, the result of all his scientific activity. Wiener called her "the description of his scientific baggage." It is the most important material for the characteristic of the scientist and at the same time the monument of the early, romantic pore of cybernetics, the "period of storms and onslaught". But she did not lose scientific Values \u200b\u200band may be unscrewed for an inquisitive researcher and in new conditions when cybernetics, winning a place under the sun, is concerned about the rational organization conquered.

The first English edition of Cybernetics saw the light in the USA and France in 1948. The modest red binding book, aburchased by the descriptions and typos, soon became a scientific bestseller, one of the books of the Century. In 1958, it translates into Russian in the publishing house "Soviet Radio". In 1961, the second edition of "Cybernetics" was published in the United States with new copyright preface and new chapters that made the second part of the book; Former her text, reprinted without change, only with editing errors, made first part. In 1963, the Publishing House "Soviet Radio" released the book "New Heads of Cybernetics", containing the translation of the preface and the second part of the second edition. Nowadays the readers are offered a complete revised translation of publication with the application of some additional articles and conversations of Wiener.

Prof. Wiener has greatly facilitated the task of his biographers by writing two books on the slope of years: one of them is devoted to childhood and years of teachings ("Former Wunderkind"); Another professional career and creativity ("I - Mathematics").

Norbert Wiener was born on November 26, 1894 in Colombia, Missouri, in the family of the Jewish immigrant. His father, Leo Wiener (1862-1939), a native of Belostok, then belonging to Russia, in his youth studied in Germany, and then moved over the ocean, to the United States. There, after different adventures, he began with a prominent philologist. In Colombia, he was already a professor of modern languages \u200b\u200bin the University of Missuria, later consisted of the Slavic languages \u200b\u200bof the oldest in the United States Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston. In the same American Cambridge in 1915, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MTI) settled, one of the main higher technical schools in the country in which Subsequently worked and son. Leo Wiener was a follower of Tolstoy and his translator into English. As a scientist, he showed very wide interests and did not retreat before risky hypotheses. These of its qualities were inherited by Norbert Winner, which differ, however, apparently, greater methodicity and depth.

According to family legend, Winners come from the famous Jewish scientist and theology of Moses Maimonide from Cordoba (1135-1204), Life-Medica at the court of Sultan Saladina Egypt. Norbert Wiener proudly responded about this legend, not a trustee, however, quite for her accuracy. Especially admired his versatility of the Maymonide.

The future founder of cybernetics was in childhood, "Wunderkind", a child with early awakened abilities. This was largely promoted by the Father, engaged in him by his own program. Young Norbert seven years read Darwin and Dante, eleven - graduated from high school, fourteen - higher education institution, TafTS College. Here he received his first scientific degree - bachelor of art.

He then studied at Harvard University already as a graduate student (Graduate Student) and seventeen years old became a master of arts, and eighteen, in 1913, a doctor of philosophy in the specialty "Mathematical Logic". The title of Philosophy in this case is not only a tribute to tradition, since Wiener first prepared himself to a philosophical career and only subsequently gave preference to mathematics. In Harvard, he studied philosophy under the leadership of J. Santyana and J. Royce (whose name the reader would find in the "cybernetics"). The philosophical formation of Wiener has already affected the development of a new science project and in the books that he wrote about her.

Harvard University granted a young doctor a scholarship for a trip to Europe. In 1913-1915 Wiener visits the University of Cambridge in England and Gottingen in Germany, but in connection with the war returns to America and finishes his educational trip to Colombian University in New York. In the English Cambridge, Wiener was engaged in the famous B. Russell, who at the beginning of the century was leading authority in the field of mathematical logic, and J. X. Hardy, famous mathematics, a specialist in the theory of numbers. Subsequently Wiener wrote: "Russell inspired me a very reasonable thought that a person going to specialize in the mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics could know something from the most mathematics." In Gottingen, Wiener was engaged in the largest German mathematics D. Hilbert, listened to the lectures of the philosopher E. Gusserly.

In 1915, the service began. Wiener received a place of assistant at the Department of Philosophy in Harvard, but only for a year. In search of happiness, he changed a number of places, was a journalist, wanted to go to the soldiers. However, he, apparently, was enough and did not feel necessary. Finally, with the assistance of mathematics F.V. Osgood, Father's friend, Wiener got a job in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1919, Wiener was appointed by the teacher (Instructor) of the Department of Mathematics MTI and since then, all his life remained an employee of the institute. In 1926, Wiener married Margarita Enhenan, an American of German origin.

Years 1920-1925 Wiener considered his formation for years in mathematics. He discovers the desire to solve complex physical and technical tasks by the methods of modern abstract mathematics. He is engaged in the theory of Brownov Movement, tries his strength in the theory of potential, develops a generalized harmonic analysis for the needs of communication theory. Academic career proceeds slowly, but successfully.

In 1932, Wiener is a complete professor. He conquers a name in the scientists of America and Europe's circles. Under his leadership the dissertation is written. He publishes a number of books and large memoirs in mathematics: "Generalized harmonic analysis", "Tauber's theorem", "Fourier integral and some of its applications" and others. A joint study with the German mathematician E. Gopf (or Hopf) on the radiation equilibrium of stars introduces Science "Wiener - Gopf equation". Other collaboration, the monograph "Fourier transformation in an integrated area" is written in collaboration with the English mathematician R. Pelie. This book was published under tragic circumstances: even before her graduation, the Englishman died in the Canadian Rocky Mountains during the ski riding. Gives Wiener Dan and Technical Creativity, in the company with Chinese scientists Yu.V. Lee and V. Bush, a famous designer of analog computing machines. In 1935-1936 Wiener was the vice-president of the American Mathematical Society.