Child prodigy, famously absent-minded MIT mathematics professor, and atheist. Born in Missouri, Norbert Wiener lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts from childhood to his death. Wiener graduated from Tufts University in 1909 and received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1913. He is best known for his theory of cybernetics, the comparative study of communication and control in humans and machines. Wiener's cybernetics roundtables influenced generations of computer scientists, engineers, and social scientists. Following World War II, he became a strong critic of nuclear armament. He directly influenced (and was influenced by) his contemporaries Vannevar Bush, John von Neumann and Alan Turing.
- Cybernetics (1948)
- The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (1950)