Talk:Norbert Wiener

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
WikiProject Biography     (Rated Start-Class) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. Biography Portal Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ] This article is supported by the Science and academia work group. More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: --Cronholm144 00:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC) (edit) An appropriate infobox may need to be added to this article, or the current infobox may need to be updated. Please refer to the list of biography infoboxes for further information. WikiProject Columbia (Rated start-Class) This article is related to WikiProject Columbia, an attempt to write quality articles about the Missouri city of Columbia and the surrounding Metropolitan Area. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale. High This article is on a subject of high-importance within Columbia. WikiProject Missouri (Rated start-Class) Missouri Portal This article is part of WikiProject Missouri, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Missouri. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale. Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale. WikiProject Mathematics     (Rated Start-Class) Mathematics Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics, which collaborates on articles related to mathematics. Mathematics rating: Start Class Mid Priority  Field: Mathematicians Please update this rating as the article progresses, or if the rating is inaccurate. Please add to or update the comments to suggest improvements to the article. --Cronholm144 00:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC) WikiProject Systems     (Rated B-Class) Systems science Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Systems, which collaborates on articles related to Systems science. Systems rating: B Class High importance  Field: Cybernetics Please update this rating as the article progresses, or if the rating is inaccurate. Please add to or update the comments to suggest improvements to the article. --Cronholm144 00:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
This article has an assessment summary page.

Contents 1 Pronunciation 2 Wiener or Weiner? 3 Anecdote # 1 4 Anecdote #5 5 Height 6 Breakup 7 Who really invented cybernetics - Odobleja or Wiener? 8 "immigrant" 9 Anecdotes

[edit] Pronunciation

Anyone know how to pronounce his surname? I can't find any confirmation on it.

I'm not sure if it's weiner as in sausage for like vine-er.

Wiener ("Viennese") is spelled Wiener, even when it's the Viennese sausage, and pronounced "veener" in German and often, mistakenly unless it's a German-American, "weener" by Americans. "Weiner" would mean "winer." --Wetman 09:33, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, speaking as one whose own last name is "weiner", it's pronounced "whiner", not "winner". --ArtifexCrastinus 05:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiener or Weiner?

Most of the article uses "Wiener", but the anecdote section uses "Weiner" when spelling Norbert's name. Which one is correct? This inconsistency should be either be fixed or explicitly addressed in the text. --Fredrik Orderud 22:12, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

"norbert wiener" - 82,200 google entries, "norbert weiner" - 7,450 google entries. somebody want to clean up the anecdotes? --Gzuckier 03:13, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Done! All ocurences of "Weiner" are now replaced with "Wiener". --Fredrik Orderud 08:53, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Anecdote # 1

I wasn't around MIT at that time, but in the late 60s there wasn't any wainscoting in any of the corridors or rooms, however old. I doubt that somebody went around and removed it. --Gzuckier 17:43, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The way I heard it (I do not remember whether it is extracted from Weiner's autobiography, or from a book "Anecdotes of the Mathematicians", or from a NY Times Book Review review of a biography of Weiner- it was from one of the preceding sources), Weiner was walking and pondering in one of the quads, when the studen stopped him &etc. Fun Trivia: This very anecdote appears again, in Dan Simmons' Hyperion quartet, where it is told of Sad King Billy instead; the Hyperion Quartet also draws upon Weiner's God and Golem, quoting from and pondering its questions. --Maru 23:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Anecdote #5

Although this is not a comical anecdote, the story nevertheless deserves telling in this space. I heard this story while I was a student at MIT. LoopTel 21:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I would be delighted if anyone could provide more facts such as name of the American warship and name of some crew members.LoopTel 00:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Height

Anecdotes section lists Norbert's height as 5' even, but I think he was 5'6" which is what I read in Dark Hero of the Information Age, a recently published biography of Wiener. He didn't look quite short enough to be 5' in the photographs, unless everyone was tiny back then.

The book lists his height as being 5' even as well. I cannot remember the page number now, but I am certain. --A. Belani, 2005-11-15

I saw Norbert Wiener numerous times in 1960 and he appeared very short to me. Since I'm only 5' 7", I would think he was about 5' 0", not 5' 6". --Rjswaney 17:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Rjswaney

~ ~ ~ ~

This story number five is interesting, but likely legend. HIstorians of cybernetics seem to agree -- I think this is discused in Peter Galison's "Ontology of the Enemy" -- that Wiener's contributions to anti-aircraft fire control were basically useless. His important idea for cybernetics grew out of this work, of course, but he all his proposals for data-smoothing were less effective than methods already in use. It's probably not possible that his work saved a boatload of people anywhere.

Bernie, April 2006 ~ ~ ~ ~

I would like to see the source of this likely highly informed and researched comment.--Scorpion451 17:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Breakup

It is now very clear that Wiener, by his rash actions during one of his depressive states, and more importantly by his wife's malevolent hidden hand, cut off his connections to McCulloch, Pitts, and their teammates. This is evidenced by the following sections in the book Dark Hero of the Information Age.

• Chapter 11, Breach and Betrayal (pages 213-234)
• Pages 313-314
• Page 335

Maybe sometime I can transcribe a few relevant paragraphs of the book here.

I think the statement in the article referring to the breakup must include these correct reasons, as there is little speculation left now. --A. Belani, 2005-11-16

Ok. Enough cites for me. Go ahead and add that back in. --Maru (talk) Contribs 01:24, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Done. --A. Belani, 2005-11-17

“Malevolent hidden hand”? Can I use this in a detective novel I am writing?

What were her motives? Was she a neuroscientist intending to publish results of researches similar to that os McCulloch and Pitts? -- NIC1138 (talk) 21:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Who really invented cybernetics - Odobleja or Wiener?

From these sites

• http://www.topedge.com/home/licinfor/stefan.html
• http://www.ici.ro/romania/en/stiinta/odobleja.html

Our mentor - the father of cybernetics

"Stefan Odobleja could be considered not only a Socrate of our times, but also a second Columb, because he had the same destiny: to discover the America of science and at the end this America got another name, not his." (I.C.Dragan)

________________________________________

Stefan Odobleja, the creator of psychocybernetics and the father of generalised cybernetics was born on the 13'th of october 1902 in the house of some poor and illiterate peasants from Izvorul Anestilor - Mehedinti.

He went to the high school in Drobeta Turnu Severin and to the college in Bucharest. He became a military doctor. His most important creation "The consonantist psychology" was presented in Psychological Abstracts (1941) but it didn't receive the deserved echo. The cybernetic model, begining from obsevations, intuition and rationality, created by Odobleja in 1938-1939, but used (as we know) ten years later, in the american literature and then in the european one, was used and applied in many scientific fields. Begining with 1972, when he read Norbert Wiener's autobiography, Stefan Odobleja devoted his time to prove that the origin of cybernetics is in psychology. He published a special creation named "The consonantist psychology and cybernetics". He died on the 4'th of september 1978 in misery. His work was better appreciated after his death - in 1982 began the establishment of Stefan Odobleja General Cybernetics Academy and the participants (from Romania and from foreign countries) decided to establish such an Academy in Switzerland too. In all his work, Odobleja tried to answer the questions based on old enigmas. His true value was discussed and recognised all over the world with appreciations like: "You have a golden man, he deserves a golden statue". --172.193.130.148 2006-01-04 22:51

Wiener personally had worked on cybernetics in more influential and diverse fields than Odobleja. He firmly established the discipline of cybernetics. It is also known from the book Dark Hero of the Information Age that Wiener himself painfully coined the magical word 'cybernetics'. The Wikipedia article on cybernetics does give claim to Odobleja as being one of the precursors of cybernetics. I believe any additional credit you wish to provide to Odobleja should be in that article. --ABelani 2006-01-05 03:33 UTC

[edit] "immigrant"

Finding the article through a general Wikipedia search, I was puzzled by the introductory sentence "Norbert Wiener was the first child of Leo Wiener, a Polish-Jewish immigrant." Immigrant to where? Great Britain, France, Australia, Israel, Kongo? Readers being aware that the article was written as part of the Missouri project, would presumably (correctly??) guess Missouri, but I would think most readers of the article are not in this category. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.108.215.149 (talk) 21:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

It states earlier in the article that he was born in the United States in Missouri.--Scorpion451 17:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anecdotes

I can't really see the value of the "anecdotes" found in the article. This kind of anecdotes is attributed to most famous thinkers; in most cases it doesn't help illustrating the character and the works of the person in question, but only serve to entertain the lesser minds.--K.C. Tang 06:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

This lesser mind begs to differ on all points except the first (regarding your inability). --Gwern (contribs) 01:50 2 August 2007 (GMT)

Merge, if sourced - I just don't see anecdote collections being encyclopedic, per se. Essentially, they're "trivia" in another format, and the suggestions of Template:trivia apply: The article could be improved by integrating relevant items into the main text and removing inappropriate items. However, if proper sources indicate that being an "absent-minded professor" was a notable aspect of Wiener's character, then an anecdote or two illustrating that would be an appropriate part of a section discussing his personality. Furthermore, they need to be properly sourced. As noted elsewhere, such gossipy stories are relatively common, and the same stories often get attributed to multiple people. Without a source, it's just a rumor. Studerby 03:56, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge, if sourced or delete, if not, per above.--K.C. Tang 08:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe that Wiener's absentminded-professor behavior is one of the defining aspects of his character, and should be given some mention. While many anecdotes about him are surely apocryphal, I believe that his return to his old home unsure of his new address, only to find his daughter waiting for him there, is reasonably well sourced. At least it's been repeated enough times that I imagine it should be included in wikipedia as something he supposedly or allegedly did. Derekt75 23:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)