Norbert Wiener brief biography and interesting facts. Norbert Wiener - Cybernetics or Management and Communication in Animal and Machine Brief Biography Wiener

1948

1894

1914

Norbert Wiener - American mathematician. In its fundamental work "Cybernetics" ( 1948 Year) Formulated its main provisions. Wiener is the author of labor on mathematical analysis, probability theory, electrical networks and computing technology. His brainchild, cybernetics - science of management and connections in cars and living organisms, was born from alloy before uncorrected mathematics, biology, sociology and economy.

During World War II, studying research in the field of anti-air defense, Norbert became interested in automatic calculations and feedback theory. Subsequently, N. Wiener formulated the main provisions of the new science - cybernetics, the subject of studying the management, communication and processing of information in the technique, living organisms and human society.

Norbert Wiener was born on November 26 1894 of the year in the city of Columbia, Missouri, in a Jewish family. His father, Leo Wiener, a native, who belonged before Russia, he studied in Germany, then moved to the United States, became a philologist, headed the Department of Slavic languages \u200b\u200band literature Harvard University in Cambridge.

In his autobiographical book, N. Viner assured that he remembers herself from two years. He learned from four years old, and at six already read Charles Darwin and Aligiery Dante. Permanent employment and passion for science gave it from peers. The situation was aggravated by acute myopia and congenital clumsy.

At first nine years he entered the secondary school, in which children began to study 15-16 years old, having completed a pre-eight-year barrier between him and the coarticles marked even more. Norbert Wiener grew unbalanced in-free adderkind. He graduated from high school when he was eleven immediately the future genius entered the Higher Educational Institution of the Taft College, and after he ended at the age of fourteen, he received a degree of bachelor of art. Then he studied at Harvard and Cornell Universities, at 17 years old at Harvard became a master of arts, in 18 - Ph.D. in the specialty "Mathematical Logic"

Harvard University allocated a scholarship for study in Cambridge (England) and Göttingen (Germany) universities. In Cambridge, Wiener listened to the lectures of the English philosopher, the logic, mathematician and public figure of Berran Russell, participated in his seminar attended the mathematics of Godfri Harold Hardy recommended by the lectures. After the course B. Russell Wiener was convinced that it was impossible to do the philosophy of mathematics, not knowing this science deeply.

Before World War II, in spring 1914 Years, Wiener moved to Göttingen, where the University studied from E. Landau and the Great German Mathematics David Hilbert.

At the beginning of the war, Norbert Wiener returned to the United States. In Columbia University, he began to engage in topology, but did not bring to the end. IN 1915 -1916 The academic year Wiener as an assistant taught mathematics at Harvard University.

The next academic year Wiener held a hiring at the University of Maine. After the US joining the Winner, Wiener worked at the General-Electric Plant, from where he went to the editorial office of the American Encyclopedia in Albany. Then, Nubert some time participated in the compilation of the tables of artillery shooting at the landfill, where it was even enrolled in the army, but soon because of myopia was fired. Then he was interrupted by articles in the newspaper, wrote two work on algebra, after the publication of which was received by the recommendation of Professor Mathematics V.F. Osgood and B. 1919 The year he entered the post of assistant Department of Mathematics Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MTI). So began his service in this institute, which lasted all his life.

Here, Norbert Wiener familiarized himself with the content of the statistical mechanics of American physicist-theorist Josayia Willrd Gibbs. He managed to associate its main provisions with Lebekistan integration when studying Brownian movement and write several articles. The same approach was possible in establishing the essence of the shot effect due to the passage of the electric current on the wires or through electronic lamps.

In autumn 1920 The International Mathematical Congress in Strasbourg was held. Wiener decided to arrive in Europe early to meet and work with some mathematicians. The case made him linger in France: a steamer, on which he sailed, sniffed with the feed on the rock and got a big teamwork to the team managed to moor in Havre.

In France, Norbert Wiener met with the French mathematician Maurice Rene Freche and after conversations with him, became interested in the generalization of vector spaces. Frechet did not immediately appreciate the result received by young scientists, but after a few months, after reading in the Polish Mathematical journal the publication of Polish mathematics Stephen Banach on the same topic, changed the opinion. For some time, such spaces were called Banach-Wiener spaces.

Returning to the USA, Wiener is hardly engaged in science. IN 1920 -1925 It solves the physical and technical tasks with the help of abstract mathematics and finds new patterns in the theory of Brownian movement, theory of potential, harmonic analysis. When Wiener was engaged in the theory of potential, similar materials of the French Mathematics Henri Lebaway and his student J.L. were printed in the "reports" of the French Academy of Sciences. Buligan. Wiener wrote a job and sent Lebug to referral to "reports." Bulligan also issued an article. Both notes came out in one issue of the magazine with the preface Lebesgue. Buliana recognized the superiority of Wiener's work and invited him to himself. It was the second winner won competition; In the first, he was ahead of two doctoral students of Professor Harvard University OD. Kelloga in the study of the potential.

IN 1922 , 1924 and 1925 For years, Norbert Wiener visited Europe from familiar and family relatives. IN 1925 The year he performed in Göttingen with a message about his works on the generalized harmonic analysis, who was interested in Hilbert, Richard Kouranta and Max Born. Subsequently, Wiener realized that its results were somewhat related to the quantum theory developed at that time.

At the same time, Wiener met one of the designers of computing machines - Vannevar Bush (American scientist, creator of a differential analyzer, a first differential analog computer) and expressed the idea of \u200b\u200ba new harmonic analyzer who came to him once in the head. Bush completed her to life.

Norbert Wiener met Margaret Endeman from the German family and decided to marry her. Their wedding took place in spring 1926 of the year, before the visit of Wiener in Göttingen. Spouses made a trip to Europe, during which Wiener met with mathematicians. In Dusseldorf, he made a report at the congress of the German league of promoting science, after which he met R. Schmidt, leading research in the field of Tauber theorems. Schmidt drew attention to the use of a common Tauber theorem to the task of the distribution of prime numbers. Wiener at the same time received significant results in this area. During his stay in Copenhagen, he met the Danish Mathematics Harald Bor (Brother Physics Niels Bora). On the road to the United States, spouses visited London, where Wiener met Hardy.

IN 1926 The year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came to work D.Ya. Stroy. After returning from Europe, Wiener together with it began to use the ideas of differential geometry to differential equations, including the Schrödinger equation. The work was crowned with success.

Norbert Wiener was convinced that the mental work "shears the man to the limit", so it should alternate with physical rest. He always enjoyed any opportunity to take walks, swimming, played various games, I was pleased to communicate with not mathematicians.

Spouses bought a house in the countryside, in 1927 The year was born the eldest daughter - Barbara, and care was gained.

Promotion of Nubert Wiener in service went slowly. He tried to get a decent place in other countries, did not come out. But it was time for the luck finally. At the meeting of the American Mathematical Society, Wiener met with Ya.D. Tamarkin, Göttingen familiar, always highly responded about his works. Such support provided him with a repeatedly arrived in the US Hardy. And it influenced Wiener's position - thanks to Tamarkina and Hardy he became known in America.

The abused great depression influenced the state of science in the country. Many scientists were more interested in stock exchanges than their direct affairs. Wiener, who by that time had two children, nevertheless, firmly believed that his appointment was "to engage in science and to attach to an independent scientific work of gifted students." Under his leadership, the doctoral dissertations defended. Particularly he noted Chinese Yuk Vings and Japanese Shikao Ikehara. Lee collaborated with Bush in the field of electrical engineering and began to implement the idea of \u200b\u200ba new device for electrical chains in practice. The device managed to create and subsequently patent. Since then, a long time has collaborated with Wiener. Ikehara improved the methods found by Wiener in the theory of prime numbers. At the same time, Nubert Wiener met Bush and discussed the fundamental device of his car, he had formulated the main ideas of digital computing machines built significantly later. Bush decided to publish a book on electrical chains, consulted with Wiener on some issues and asked him to write about the Fourier method.

The joint activity of Wiener with the Hopf Harvard University from Germany was particularly significant, as a result of which the "Wiener Hopf Equation" describes the radiation equilibrium of stars, as well as relating to other tasks in which two different modes are being conducted separated by the border.

IN 1929 The year in the Swedish journal "Act Mathematics" and the American "Annals of Mathematics" came out two large final articles of Wiener on a generalized harmonic analysis

FROM 1932 Years Norbert Wiener - Professor MTI. In Harvard, he met the physiologist A. Rosenblut and began to attend his methodological seminar, which united representatives of various sciences. This seminar played an important role in the formation of cybernetics ideas at Wiener. After the departure of Rosenblut in Mexico City, the seminar meeting was held sometimes in Mexico City, sometimes in MTI.

At the same time N. Wiener invited to take part in the activities of the National Academy of Sciences. Having become acquainted with the orders who weighing the intrigue, he left her. In mathematical society, he still actively worked, in 1935 -1936 The years was his vice president and he was awarded the prestigious prize of society for work on analysis.

IN 1934 Norbert Wiener received an invitation from the University of Qinghua (in Beijing) to read the course of lectures in mathematics and electrical engineering. The initiator of this was whether working at the university. Wiener with his family went through Japan to China; In Tokyo, Ikeuhar met him. At the same time, he worked with whether to improve the analog computing machine Bush. Upon return, it was decided to get to the International Mathematical Congress in Oslo. During a long journey through the oceans and seas, Wiener, taking advantage of forced leisure, wrote a novel "Teptist" about the fate of one inventor (published in 1959 year). The year of the visit of China, he considered the year of the full formation of him as a scientist.

During the war, Winner devoted his work to military affairs almost entirely. He explores the task of movement of the aircraft with an anti-aircraft shelling. Thinking and experimenting was convinced by Nubert Wiener in the fact that the fire management system of anti-aircraft artillery should be a feedback system that feedback plays a significant role in the human body. Forecasting processes, carrying out that cannot be relying only on human consciousness.

The computational machines that existed at that time did not possess the necessary speed. This forced Wiener to formulate a number of requirements for such machines. In fact, they were predicted paths for which electronics and computing techniques went. Computational devices, in his opinion, "must consist of electronic lamps, and not from gears or electromechanical relays. It is necessary to ensure a sufficient rapid action. "

The following requirement consisted in the computing devices "the more economical binary, and not a decimal number system" should be used. The car believed Norbert Wiener, he must correct his actions itself, it is necessary to develop an ability to self-educate. To do this, it must be provided with a memory block where control signals would be postponed, as well as the information that the machine will receive during the work. If earlier the car was only an executive body, entirely dependent on the will of a person, now it became thinking and acquired a certain proportion of independence.

IN 1943 The year was published by an article Wiener, Rosenblut, Baiglow "Behavior, focusing and teleology", which is the sketch of the cybernetic method.

In his memoirs, Wiener wrote that in the summer 1946 He was invited to France to the city of Nancy at the Mathematical Conference. On the way to Nancy, he stops in London and meets the studies of his colleagues. In his head, he has long matured the idea to write a book and tell it about the community of laws acting in the field of automatic regulation, organization of production and in the human nervous system. He could even persuade the Paris publisher of Feiman to publish this future book. That long doubted, but decided to risk.

After returning from the conference, Norbert Wiener went to Mexico and for about a year, Rosenbluts worked on the ordered book. Immediately there was a difficulty with the title, it was too unusual to content. It was required to find a word associated with control, regulation. Greek came to mind, similar to the "steering", which in English sounds like "cybernetics". So Winter left him.

The book "Cybernetics" reached 1948 Year in the New York Publishing House "John Wieli \u200b\u200b& Sanz" and the Paris "Hermann This" Wiener was no longer young. He suffered from cataract, clouded eye lens, and saw badly. There was an operation that was considered quite complicated at that time. From here, numerous errors and typos in the text of the publication "The book appeared in a sloppy form," Winner recalled, "since the proofreading passed at the time when the troubles were deprived of my opportunities to read, and young assistants who helped me, reacted their duties not enough. OK".

With the exit to the light "Cybernetics" Norbert Wiener, as they say, "woken up famous." "The appearance of the book," he wrote, "in the blink of an eye turned me from a worker, using a certain authority in his special area, in something like a piece of social importance. It was nice, but had its own negative sides. "

Cybernetics immediately acquired noisy popularity. She became fashion. Even some artists in order to keep up with life, they organized something like the "cybernetic" direction in art. Especially a lot of fiction writers have been trying. What are the apocalyptic horrors they did not draw!

The founder of the modern theory of management, Wiener himself considered the English physics, the creator of the classic electrodynamics of James Clerk Maxwell, and it is quite fair. The theory of automatic regulation was mainly formulated by J. Maxwell, Ivan Alekseevich Vysnevaradsky, Mathematics Alexei Andreevich Lyapunov and Heat Engineer Aurelia Stodca. What is the merit of N. Wiener? Maybe his book is simply a compilation of well-known information, collects the famous, but scattered material?

The merit of Norbert Wiener is that he first understood the fundamental importance of information in the management processes. Speaking about management and connection in living organisms and cars, he saw the main thing not just in the words "Management" and "Communication", but in their combination, just as in the theory of relativity, the fact of the limb of the interaction speed is important, but a combination of this Fact with the concept of simultaneity of events flowing at various points of space. Cybernetics - the science of information management, and Wiener with full right can be considered the Creator of this science.

All the years after the release of "Cybernetics", Wiener promoted her ideas. IN 1950 the year was continued - "Human use of human beings", in 1958 year - "nonlinear tasks in the theory of random processes", in 1961 year - the second edition of "Cybernetics", in 1963 year - a kind of cybernetic essay "Joint-Stock Company God and Golem".

In recent years, the inquisitive mind of Norbert Viener is penetrated into biology, neurology, electroencephalography, genetics

Wiener is one of the few scientists who have written in detail about themselves. He published two wonderful books about his life and work - "Former Wunderkind" ( 1951 ) And "I - Mathematics" ( 1956 ). In these books, the author also stood up the views on the development of mankind, the role of science, the value of communicating scientists.

American mathematician, one of the founders of cybernetics (the first edition of the same book occurred in 1948, although the term himself "cybernetics" used to be used yet Plato and Ampere).

Father's home education was engaged in Leo Wiener. - follower of ideas and translator L.N. Tolstoyas well as , .

At the age of three, Norbert knew how to read and write, and in seven years I read Darwinand Dante. At eleven years he graduated from high school, in 17 years old became a master of arts, in 18 - a Ph.D. in Philosophy in the specialty "Mathematical Logic".

Norbert WienerWorking "... with engineers, doctors, biologists, he realized the deep inner unity of many tasks arising in different fields. It turned out that many studied processes or processed systems are described by the same mathematical models and suggest similar ways to solve the tasks. Moreover, in a variety of cases, a controlled or studied system can be viewed as a "black box", which in response to these exposure gives well-defined reactions, regardless of what is inside this "box". Moving along the path scheduled N. WinnerIt was possible to introduce very important for the theory of management, and for other areas of knowledge the concept of feedback, construct conceptual and mathematical models. "

Classic management. Wiener Norbert.

Publication information is kindly providedbut pieter ed

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-governing; 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. "

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?".

, Mathematician, philosopher

Norbert Wiener (English Norbert Wiener; November 26, 1894, Colombia, Missouri, USA - March 18, 1964, Stockholm, Sweden) - American scientist of Jewish origin, outstanding mathematician and philosopher, founder of cybernetics and artificial intelligence theory.

Norbert Wiener was born in a Jewish family. Mother's parents, Berta Kan, were immigrants from Germany. The father of the scientist, Leo Wiener (1862 - 1939), studied medicine in Warsaw and engineering in Berlin, and after moving to the United States, as a result of the professor at the Department of Slavic languages \u200b\u200band literature at Harvard University.

The discipline of the scientist lies in the fact that it is devoted to the search for truth. This discipline generates a desire to go to any victims - whether the victims are material or even as a last resort of victim in their own safety.

Wiener Norbert.

At 4, Wiener was already allowed to the parent library, and at the age of 7 he wrote his first scientific treatise on Darwin. Norbert never really studied in high school. But for 11 years old, he entered the prestigious Taft College, who finished with honors after three years after a bachelor of art.

At the age of 18, Norbert Wiener has already been written by Dr. Science in the specialty "Mathematical Logic" in Cornell and Harvard Universities. At the nineteenth age, Dr. Wiener was invited to the Department of Mathematics Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1913, the young Wiener starts his journey in Europe, he listens to Lectures and Hardy in Cambridge and Hilbert in Gottingen. After the start of the war, he returns to America. During study in Europe, the future "Father Cybernetics" had to try their strength as a journalist of the near-theniversional newspaper, test herself on a pedagogical field, to serve a couple of months in the factory.

The most perfect cat model is the same cat, and better - he himself.
(PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 1945)

Wiener Norbert.

In 1915, he tried to get to the front, but did not pass a medical examination because of poor vision.

Since 1919, Wiener becomes a teacher of the Department of Mathematics Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 20-30, he again visits Europe. In the theory of radiation equilibrium, the stars appears the equation of Wiener-Hopf. He reads a course of lectures at the Tsinghua Beijing University. Among his acquaintances - N. Bor, M. Born, g. Adamar and other famous scientists.

The feeling of an inseparable connection with the past ... It depends not only on the knowledge of the chronicle history ... In an effort to a decent future, you should remember the past, and if there are whole regions, where the awareness of the past is crumbbed to the size of a bare point on a huge map, then there can be nothing worse as For us, and for our descendants ...

Wiener Norbert.

In 1926 he married Margaret Engerman.

Before World War II, Wiener became a professor at the Harvard, Cornell, Columbian, Brownian, Göttingenovsky university, received the department in the Massachusetts Institute, wrote hundreds of articles on probabilities theory and statistics, on the ranks and integrals of Fourier, on the theory of potential theory and the theory of numbers A generalized harmonious analysis ... During World War II, on which the professor wished to be designed, he works on a mathematical apparatus for anti-aircraft fire systems (deterministic and stochastic models for the organization and management of the American forces of anti-air defense). He developed a new effective probabilistic model management forces by air defense.

"Cybernetics" Wiener saw the light in 1948. The full name of the master book of Wiener looks like the following way "Cybernetics, or control and communication in an animal and machine."

A few months before the death of Norbert Wiener was awarded the golden coin medal, the highest award for a man of science in America. At the solemn meeting dedicated to this event, President Johnson said: "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." With these words, Wiener pulled a handkerchief and was clearly visited.

Norbert Wiener - Photo

Norbert Wiener - Quotes

The discipline of the scientist is that it is devoted to the search for truth. This discipline generates a desire to go to any victims - whether the victims are material or even as a last resort of victim in their own safety.

Scientists are usually distinguished by excessive sensitivity, and as easily excited as artists and poets.

The most perfect cat model is the same cat, and better - he himself. (PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 1945)

"The feeling of an inseparable connection with the past ... depends not only on the knowledge of the chronicle history ... In an effort to a worthy future, you should remember the past, and if there are whole regions, where the awareness of the past is crumbbed to the size of a bare point on a huge map, then there can be nothing worse As for us, and for our descendants ... "(Norbert Wiener. Science and society. See public sciences and modernity - 1994, No. 6, p.130.)

"The brain is a kind of body ... In one Chicago insurance company there was an agent, an upward star ... Unfortunately, they often mastered the Handra, and when he left the service home, no one knew if he would use the elevator or step out for the window of the tenth floor. In the end, the Board convinced him to part with a tiny particle of the frontal lobe of the brain ... After that ... no agent since the founding of society did not commit equal feats in the field of insurance ... However, everyone missed one fact: Lobotomy does not contribute to the subtlety of judgment and caution. When the insurance agent became a financier, he suffered a complete collapse, and with him and society. No, I would not want anyone to change the scheme of my inner wiring ... "(Norbert Wiener. Head. American Fiction: Collection: - M.: Raduga, 1988, p. 451.)