Talk:Norbert Wiener
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[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)
[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)
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- 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] 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
[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)
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- Done. --A. Belani, 2005-11-17
[edit] Who really invented cybernetics - Odobleja or Wiener?
From these sites
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
