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In 1906, Norbert Wiener was named "The
Most Remarkable Boy in the World." A child prodigy,
he entered college at age eleven, earned his Ph.D. at eighteen,
and then began his brilliant career at MIT. In 1948 he launched
a scientific revolution with his book Cybernetics,
which defined the modern science of communication and control
in machines and living things. His work heavily influenced
legends of twentieth-century science and society: computer
pioneer John von Neumann, information theorist Claude Shannon,
anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and labor
kingpin Walter Reuther. Yet today, the man, his work, and
his prescient warnings have been virtually forgotten.
In this groundbreaking biography, award-winning
journalists Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman set out to rescue
Wiener's genius from obscurity and to explore the many ways
in which his revolutionary ideas continue to shape our lives.
They retrace Wiener's globe-trotting odyssey: his torturous
upbringing and lifelong battle with manic-depression; his
inspired technical work that played a pivotal role in the
Allied victory in World War II; and the "big bang"
of the information age when cybernetics burst on the postwar
scene.
Through interviews with Wiener's family
and colleagues, the authors reconstruct a life marked by
eccentricity and tumultuous relationships. They draw on
newly declassified government documents to show how the
FBI and CIA pursued Wiener at the height of the Cold War
to thwart his social activism and the growing influence
of cybernetics at home and abroad.
The science that Norbert Wiener invented
has only grown in significance for modern life. "Feedback,"
a term he popularized, now refers to automated machinery,
"smart" technology, and human communication --
the new new thing is actually old. But he also warned of
the dangers inherent in new electronic and biological technologies
that could exceed human control, making him not just a mathematical
genius but a social visionary as well. The story of this
brilliant, multitalented man is fundamental to an understanding
of the intersection of technology and culture in the twenty-first
century.
Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman are award-winning
journalists, communication researchers, and the authors
of Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality
Change and Holy Terror: The Fundamentalist War on
America's Freedoms in Religion, Politics, and Our Private
Lives. They live in New York City.
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