Norbert Wiener

Norbert Wiener (18941964) is well known by the general public as the founder of Cybernetics, by mathematicians as one of the first north-American mathematicians who win international prestige as the person who formalized Brownian motion, solved the Zaremba problem and was the author of two seminal papers devoted to Generalized Harmonic Analysis and Tauberian Theorems and by engineers as the person who proposed much of the Fourier analysis used by them and contributed to the foundation of the statistical theory of communication which includes the use of wave filter theory, information theory and prediction theory in control and communications as well as the automation of all types of electronic devices.

Wiener's research, which was frequently motivated by physics, engineering, or biology, was a clever mixture of Fourier analysis and probability theory. His contributions to electronics through his work on filtering (that is, the separation of noise from a message), and the theory of prediction made him very valuable to electronics engineering. In addition, Wiener addressed many other topics, including the formalization of the Brownian motion, ergodic theory, wave filter theory, and information theory. Taking all these ingredients together, he ventured to create a new scientific paradigm: cybernetics.

This book contains a detailed explanation of Wiener's life, his many colleagues, and the historical context in which he lived, as well as Wiener's work. It also contains a large appendix about 'Wiener, Shannon, and the rise of a Digital World'. The main focus of the book is on Wiener's work related to electrical and electronic engineering and the way he used his mathematics to create the main concepts and techniques of the statistical theory of communication. In particular, the author presents Wiener surrounded by the engineers that worked at MIT with whom he maintained strong contact. It was in this atmosphere that information theory arose, and Wiener was a main influence on the people who developed that theory.

Contents:

• Foreword
• About the Author
• Childhood and Youth: From Child Prodigy to Doctor in Philosophy
• Beginnings as a Mathematician
• Life Among Engineers
• Climbing Mathematical Olympus
• Mathematics for War
• Cybernetics: The Return to Philosophy
• Appendix: Wiener, Shannon, and the Rise of a Digital World
• Chronology
• Doctoral Students of Wiener
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Subject Index

Readership: Undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and practitioners in the fields of mathematics, physics, electrical and electronic engineering, and even biologists, physicians, and philosophers. It will also be useful to people interested in the history of science and technology.
Key Features:

• The book contains both a detailed account of Wiener's biography and an extensive explanation of his use of mathematics to solve engineering problems
• Although the mathematics are explained, this is done with an elementary exposition, so that many technical details are avoided. The mathematics are presented in such a form that the reader can understand how Wiener's ideas evolved, and see them as a natural and integrated flow
• A discussion of the Militarization of Science in the USA (and Wiener's thoughts on that issue) is included
• An extensive appendix where Wiener's and Shannon's contributions to the rise of a Digital World are explained and confronted, is included
• The book contains many boxes with extra explanations about the characters appearing in the book as well as about mathematics and engineering ideas and problems. Thus, a two-level reading can be made: one can just read the main text or can also read the boxes
• The book contains a detailed bibliography, which is d

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