Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener the Father of Cybernetics.

Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman. Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener the Father of Cybernetics. New York: Basic Books, 2005.

I was introduced to Norbert Wiener through Neil Postman's Media Ecology seminars.

A wunderkind, born in 1894, Wiener graduated from Harvard with a Ph.D. at age 18. He was then sent off to England to study under Bertrand Russell, and after that went to Gottingen, Germany, to explore his mathematical notions with some of the most renowned scholars in the field of mathematics. In 1919 Wiener obtained a professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he remained for 45 years.

Wiener's father, Leo, was a scholar of languages and a severe taskmaster to his prodigy son, leaving Wiener with a lifetime of emotional problems. But Wiener overcame his problems enough to be able to delve into questions of certainty in philosophy, once studying with John Dewey, as well as various mathematical and statistical quandaries.

Wiener's life and ideas converged at a critical period in science and electronic technology. He studied Einstein's theories and quantum theory, leading him to his produce a communication theory that he coined, "cybernetics." He attempted to explain that theory in his book "Cybernetics" (1948). (Wiener's most popular book for lay readers was The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (1950). In this book he states, "Society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it.")

One of the many interesting features of Wiener's life is that he assisted the U.S. military in developing anti-aircraft systems. However, after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, he became an outspoken critic of military technologies. Wiener also understood how computers, with their prodigious memories and ability to search through extensive files of materials, could be used for good or evil.

Wiener remained busy with his scientific and social concerns in the last two decades of his life. Because of his political ideas and criticism, he was investigated by the FBI and tracked by the British MI-5 when he lectured in the United Kingdom. He died in 1964 in Stockholm, Sweden.

In their introduction, Conway and Siegelman state, "Wiener's revolutionary contributions have been largely forgotten for reasons that have remained obscure until now." Hopefully, with this well-written and important biography, Norbert Wiener will no longer be a forgotten hero of the information age.

REVIEW BY TERENCE M. RIPMASTER