Internationally honored for brilliant achievements throughout his career, author of Cybernetics, ExProdigy, and the essay God and Golem, Inc., which won the National Book Award in 1964, Norbert Wiener was no ordinary mathematician. With the ability to understand how things worked or might work at a very deep level, he linked his own mathematics to engineering and provided basic ideas for the design of all sorts of inventions, from radar to communications networks to computers to artificial limbs. Wiener had an abiding concern about the ethics guiding applications of theories he and other scientists developed. Years after he died, the manuscript for this book was discovered among his papers. The world of science has changed greatly since Wiener's day, and much of the change has been in the direction he warned against. Now published for the first time, this book can be read as a salutary corrective from the past and a chance to rethink the components of an environment that encourages inventiveness.Wiener provides an engagingly written insider's understanding of the history of discovery and invention, emphasizing the historical circumstances that foster innovations and allow their application.His message is that truly original ideas cannot be produced on an assembly line, and that their consequences are often felt only at distant times and places. The intellectual and technological environment has to be right before the idea can blossom. The best course for society is to encourage the best minds to pursue the most interesting topics, and to reward them for the insights they produce. Wiener's comments on the problem of secrecy and the importance of the "free-lance" scientist are particularly pertinent today.Steve Heims provides a brief history of Wiener's literary output and reviews his contributions to the field of invention and discovery. In addition, Heims suggests significant ways in which Wiener's ideas still apply to dilemmas facing the scientific and engineering communities of the 1990s. Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) was Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In An Engine, Not a Camera, Donald MacKenzie argues that the emergence of modern economic theories of finance affected financial markets in fundamental...169,88 zł
The Robotics Primer offers a broadly accessible introduction to robotics for students at pre-university and university levels, robot hobbyists,...227,68 zł
An argument for a design philosophy of better, not more.Never have we wanted, owned, and wasted so much stuff. Our consumptive path through modern...88,71 zł
This interdisciplinary history and theory of sound in the arts reads the twentieth century żeby listening to it--to the emphatic and exceptional...234,43 zł
An argument that what makes science distinctive is its emphasis on evidence and scientists' willingness to change theories on the basis of new...65,55 zł
Climate engineering -- which could slow the pace of global warming aby injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere -- has emerged...38,96 zł
An up-to-date overview of the field of connectomics, introducing concepts and mechanisms underlying brain network change at different stages....227,68 zł
Among architects and preservationists, the writings of Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) have long been considered major resources. They inspired a...266,35 zł
The conceptual history of cognitive science remains for the most part unwritten. In this groundbreaking book, Jean-Pierre Dupuy--one of the principal...214,19 zł
A concise overview of machine learning--computer programs that learn from data--the basis of such applications as voice recognition and driverless...56,28 zł
Opinie i recenzje użytkowników
Dodaj opinie lub recenzję dla Invention. Twój komentarz zostanie wyświetlony po moderacji.