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{{short description|American mathematician and philosopher (1894–1964)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Use American English|date=July 2020}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Norbert Wiener
| image             = Norbert Wiener.png
| caption           = 
| birth_date        = {{Birth date|1894|11|26}}
| birth_place       = [[Columbia, Missouri]], U.S.
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|1964|3|18|1894|11|26}}
| death_place       = [[Stockholm]], Sweden
| field             = [[Mathematics]]<br />[[Cybernetics]]<br />[[Computer science]]
| work_institutions = [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]
| education         = [[Tufts College]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br />[[Cornell University]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]])<br />[[Harvard University]] ([[PhD]])
| doctoral_advisors = Karl Schmidt<ref name=math>{{MathGenealogy|id=25222}}</ref>
| academic_advisors = [[Josiah Royce]]<ref name=Montagnini-2017>{{cite book |first=Leone |last=Montagnini |year=2017 |title=Harmonies of Disorder – Norbert Wiener: A mathematician-philosopher of our time |publisher=Springer |pages=4, 61, 249–252 }}</ref>{{rp|style=ama|page=61}}
| doctoral_students = {{plainlist|
* [[Amar Bose]]
* [[Colin Cherry]]
* [[Shikao Ikehara]]
* [[Yuk-Wing Lee]]
* [[Norman Levinson]]
* [[Dorothy Walcott Weeks]]
* [[George Zames]]
* [[John P. Costas (engineer)|John P. Costas]]
}}
| known_for         = {{collapsible list|title=&nbsp;|[[Cybernetics]]<br>[[Brownian motion]]<br>[[abstract Wiener space]]<br>[[Wiener amalgam space]]<br>[[classical Wiener space]]<br>[[Evolutionary informatics]]<br>[[Generalized Wiener process]]<br>[[Information revolution]]<br>[[Philosophy of information]]<br>''More'': [[List of things named after Norbert Wiener]]}}
| prizes            = [[Bôcher Memorial Prize]] <small>(1933)</small><br>[[National Medal of Science]] <small>(1963)</small>
| thesis_title      = A Comparison Between the Treatment of the Algebra of Relatives by Schroeder and that by Whitehead and Russell
| thesis_url        = https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/874331086
| thesis_year       = 1913
| signature         = Sign of N. Wiener.png
| spouse            = {{marriage|Margaret Engemann|1926}}
| children          = 2
}}

'''Norbert Wiener''' (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American [[computer scientist]], [[mathematician]], and [[philosopher]]. He became a professor of mathematics at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] ([[MIT]]). A [[child prodigy]], Wiener later became an early researcher in [[stochastic processes|stochastic]] and mathematical [[Noise (signal processing)|noise]] processes, contributing work relevant to [[electronic engineering]], [[electronic communication]], and [[control system]]s.

Wiener is considered the originator<ref name="W1948">{{cite book |last = Wiener |first = Norbert |author-link = Norbert Wiener |year = 1948 |title = Cybernetics: Or control and communication in the animal and the machine |publisher = [[MIT Press]] |location = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] |title-link = Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine }}</ref> of [[cybernetics]], the science of communication as it relates to living things and machines,<ref>{{Cite web |first=Norbert |last=Wiener |author-link=Norbert Wiener |date = 15 June 2018 |title = The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics pioneer Norbert Wiener on communication, control, and the morality of our machines |url=https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/06/15/the-human-use-of-human-beings-norbert-wiener/ }}</ref> with implications for [[engineering]], [[Control theory|systems control]], [[computer science]], [[biology]], [[neuroscience]], [[philosophy]], and the organization of [[society]]. His work heavily influenced computer pioneer [[John von Neumann]], information theorist [[Claude Shannon]], anthropologists [[Margaret Mead]] and [[Gregory Bateson]], and others.

Wiener is credited as being one of the first to theorize that all intelligent behavior was the result of feedback mechanisms that could possibly be simulated by machines, an important early step towards the development of modern [[artificial intelligence]].<ref name= beginsOfAi >{{cite web |date=11 January 2019 |title=The Beginnings of AI Research |department=AI Research |website=world-information.org |url=http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611663/100438659360/?ic=100446326158/ |url-status=live |access-date=11 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190111175726/http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611663/100438659360/?ic=100446326158%2F |archive-date=11 January 2019 }}</ref>

==Biography==

===Family and Youth===
Wiener was born in [[Columbia, Missouri]], the first child of [[Leo Wiener]] and Bertha Kahn, [[Jewish]] immigrants from [[Lithuanian Jews|Lithuania]] and [[German Jews|Germany]], respectively. Through his father, he was related to [[Maimonides]], the famous [[rabbi]], philosopher and physician from [[Al Andalus]], as well as to [[Akiva Eger]], [[chief rabbi]] of [[Poznań|Posen]] from 1815 to 1837.<ref name="Montagnini-2017" />{{rp|style=ama|page=4}}

He met his paternal grandfather —Solomon Wiener, whom he describes as a scholarly [[journalist]] incapable of keeping the family together—only once in [[New York City|New York]].<ref name=":2" /> Despite this, he was impressed by his grandfather's efforts to replace [[Yiddish]] in his lived environment with [[German language|German]].<ref name=":2" /> Solomon was born in [[Krotoschin]], but married his wife—who came from a family of Jewish [[Tanning (leather)|tanners]]—before settling in [[Byelostok]] where Wiener's father was born in 1862.<ref name=":2" /> Wiener was told they had originally been minor [[nobles]] in [[Russia]], such that when the Russian [[Tzar]] came to visit Byelostok it was his grandmother's house which was selected as a place of temporary residence.<ref name=":2" /> 

His paternal grandmother's side of the family was very different to his grandfather's side, and Wiener suggests that his father developed "solid, [[business]]-like habits that gave my father a firm footing in life",<ref name=":3" /> which made him a better custodian of the family than his grandfather.<ref name=":3" /> Nonetheless, his father still displayed an idealist streak.<ref name=":3" /> By the age of thirteen and because of their family situation—and because according to Wiener there is a tendency within the Jewish community to give [[Adolescence|adolescent]] boys the responsibilities of men—his father Leo had begun to support his family as a [[private tutor]].<ref name=":3" /> Due to the German bias of his grandfather, Wiener's father went to a [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] school and learnt [[Polyglot|several languages]].<ref name=":3" /> 

His father later left the [[Minsk]] [[Gymnasium (school)|Gymnasium]] for [[Warsaw]] in [[Poland]], where Wiener claims his father developed good relations with his [[Polish people|Polish]] schoolmates—so much so that his father became privy to the underground [[Resistance in partitioned Poland (1795–1918)|Polish resistance movement]].<ref name=":4">{{harvnb|Wiener|2018a|pp=15}}</ref> His father became a contemporary of [[L. L. Zamenhof|Zamenhof]], the inventor of [[Esperanto]], to which Wiener claims: "my father was one of the first to study the new artificial language".<ref name=":4" /> His father later went to the [[University of Warsaw]] to study [[medicine]], although could not handle the profession so went to study at the Polytechnicum in [[Berlin]] to study [[engineering]].<ref>{{harvnb|Wiener|2018a|pp=15-16}}</ref> Relatives in Berlin with connections to [[Mendelssohn & Co.|Mendelssohn bank]] tried to get his father to pursue a career in banking, but his father declined.<ref name=":5">{{harvnb|Wiener|2018a|pp=16}}</ref> Instead, his father had begun to develop a [[Tolstoyan movement|Tolstoyan]] ethic which was reinforced through his attendance of a [[humanitarian]] student meeting, which would eventually led to him emigrating to the [[United States]], as well as Wiener's [[vegetarianism]].<ref name=":5" /> Wiener, however, expressed resentment over his father's [[dogmatism]] over this later point during his childhood, which in his view led to [[emotional abuse]] from his father.<ref name=":5" />

{{blockquote|However, assuming for the sake of argument that all these events had occurred in their due sequence, I should still not have been brought up as a vegetarian, should not have lived in a house in which I was surrounded by horrible and hair raising vegetarian tracts concerning cruelty to animals, and should not have been subjected to the overwhelming precept and example of my father in such matters.}}

His father planned to set up a [[Intentional community|commune]] in [[Central America]] based on these ideas.<ref name=":5" /> However, his companion abandoned him, leaving him on a ship to [[Hartlepool UA|Hartlepool]].<ref name=":5" /> His father then went to [[Liverpool]], [[Havana|Havana]] and [[New Orleans]]—picking up both on [[English language|English]] and [[Spanish language|Spanish]] during his trip.<ref name=":5" /> Eventually, his father decided to teach languages and went into [[Philology]].<ref>{{harvnb|Wiener|2018a|pp=20-21}}</ref> He later met Wiener's mother Bertha Kahn, the daughter of department store owner Henry Kahn, in St. Joseph, [[Missouri]].<ref>{{harvnb|Wiener|2018a|pp=21}}</ref>

His maternal grandfather was a [[German Jewish]] immigrant from [[Rhineland]]. His wife, whose maiden name was Ellinger, had settled in the United States a few generations beforehand.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Wiener |first=Norbert |title=Norbert Wiener—A Life in Cybernetics: Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth and I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy |publisher=The MIT Press |year=2018b |isbn=9780262347051 |location=Cambridge, MA |pages=23–28 |chapter=The Proper Missourians |doi=10.7551/mitpress/11597.003.0009}}</ref> He notes that his maternal grandmother's mother was not Jewish, and suggests that while women in that side of the family tended to marry inside the [[Jewish community]], men from that side of the family tended to marry [[Gentile|Gentiles]].<sup><ref name=":6" /></sup> The family could also trace its roots to [[American South]].<ref name=":6" /> He notes that many men from this side of the family tended to leave some "career of impeccable [[propriety]] by suddenly leaving his family and taking to the [[Manifest destiny|great open spaces]]"<sup><ref name=":7">{{harvnb|Wiener|2018b|pp=22}}</ref></sup>, with rumours that one family member ended up becoming a [[Western United States|Western]] [[Banditry|bandit]] and was shot trying to evade capture.<ref name=":7" /> In his autobiography, Wiener contrasted the [[melting pot]] culture that he was brought up in with the more socially homogeneous [[White Anglo-Saxon Protestants|Old American]] culture that had been predominant before.<ref name=":7" /> He saw this culture as offering greater freedom and opportunity compared to the [[serfdom]] that was found for many in [[Eastern Europe]].<ref name=":7" />

He writes of his youth: "Child as I was, I absorbed a real understanding of many things, and my childish point of view is not totally devoid of significance".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Wiener |first=Norbert |title=Norbert Wiener—A Life in Cybernetics: Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth and I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy |publisher=The MIT Press |year=2018a |isbn=9780262347051 |location=Cambridge, MA |pages=11–22 |chapter=A Russian Irishman in Kansas City |doi=10.7551/mitpress/11597.003.0008}}</ref> Leo had educated Norbert at home until 1903, employing teaching methods of his own invention, except for a brief interlude when Norbert was seven years of age. Earning his living teaching German and Slavic languages, Leo read widely and accumulated a personal library from which the young Norbert benefited greatly. Leo also had ample ability in mathematics and tutored his son in the subject until he left home. In his autobiography, Norbert described his father as calm and patient, unless he (Norbert) failed to give a correct answer, at which his father would lose his temper.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wallace |first=Amy |url=https://archive.org/details/prodigy00wall/mode/2up?q=%22wiener%22&view=theater |title=The prodigy |date=1986 |publisher=New York : E.P. Dutton |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-525-24404-2 |pages=57}}</ref>

In "The Theory of Ignorance", a paper Wiener wrote at the age of 10, he disputed "man’s presumption in declaring that his knowledge has no limits", arguing that all human knowledge "is based on an approximation", and acknowledging "the impossibility of being certain of anything."<ref>{{harvnb|Conway|Siegelman|2005}}</ref>

Wiener graduated from [[Ayer High School]] in 1906 at age 11, at which point he entered [[Tufts College]], being awarded a [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] in mathematics in 1909 at the age of 14. He began graduate studies of [[zoology]] at [[Harvard]], before transferring to [[Cornell University|Cornell]] in 1910 to study philosophy. He graduated in 1911 at 17 years of age.<ref name="NYT Norbert Wiener obituary">{{cite web | title=Dr. Norbert Wiener Dead at 69; Known as Father of Automation | website=The New York Times | date=1964-03-19 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/19/archives/dr-norbert-wiener-dead-at-69-known-as-father-of-automation.html | access-date=2024-01-14}}</ref>

===Harvard and World War I===
The next year, he returned to Harvard, while still continuing his philosophical studies. Back at Harvard, Wiener became influenced by [[Edward Vermilye Huntington]], whose mathematical interests ranged from axiomatic foundations to engineering problems. Harvard awarded Wiener a [[PhD]] in June&nbsp;1913, when he was only 19&nbsp;years old, for a dissertation on [[mathematical logic]] (a comparison of the work of [[Ernst Schröder (mathematician)|Ernst Schröder]] with that of [[Alfred North Whitehead]] and [[Bertrand Russell]]), supervised by Karl Schmidt, the essential results of which were published as {{harvp|Wiener|1914}}. He was one of the youngest to achieve such a feat. In that dissertation, he was the first to state publicly that [[ordered pair]]s can be defined in terms of elementary [[set theory]]. Hence [[relation (mathematics)|relations]] can be defined by set theory, thus the theory of relations does not require any axioms or primitive notions distinct from those of set theory. In 1921, [[Kazimierz Kuratowski]] proposed a simplification of Wiener's definition of ordered pairs, and that simplification has been in common use ever since. It is <math>\ \left( x, y \right) = \bigl\{ \left\{ x \right\}, \left\{x, y \right\}\ \bigr\} ~.</math>

In 1914, Wiener traveled to Europe, to be taught by [[Bertrand Russell]] and [[G. H. Hardy]] at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge University]], and by [[David Hilbert]] and [[Edmund Landau]] at the [[University of Göttingen]]. At Göttingen he also attended three courses with [[Edmund Husserl]] "one on Kant's ethical writings, one on the principles of Ethics, and the seminar on Phenomenology." (Letter to Russell, c. June or July, 1914). During 1915–1916, he taught philosophy at Harvard, then was an engineer for [[General Electric]] and wrote for the ''[[Encyclopedia Americana]]''. Wiener was briefly a journalist for the ''[[Boston Herald]]'', where he wrote a feature story on the poor labor conditions for mill workers in [[Lawrence, Massachusetts]], but he was fired soon afterwards for his reluctance to write favorable articles about a politician the newspaper's owners sought to promote.<ref>{{harvnb|Conway|Siegelman|2005|p=45}}</ref>

Although Wiener eventually became a staunch pacifist, he eagerly contributed to the war effort in World War I. In 1916, with [[United States in World War I|America's entry into the war]] drawing closer, Wiener attended a training camp for potential military officers but failed to earn a commission. One year later Wiener again tried to join the military, but the government again rejected him due to his poor eyesight. In the summer of 1918, [[Oswald Veblen]] invited Wiener to work on [[ballistics]] at the [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]] in Maryland.<ref>{{harvnb|Conway|Siegelman|2005|pp=41–43}}</ref> Living and working with other mathematicians strengthened his interest in mathematics. However, Wiener was still eager to serve in uniform and decided to make one more attempt to enlist, this time as a common soldier. Wiener wrote in a letter to his parents, "I should consider myself a pretty cheap kind of a swine if I were willing to be an officer but unwilling to be a soldier."<ref>{{harvnb|Conway|Siegelman|2005|p=43}}</ref> This time the army accepted Wiener into its ranks and assigned him, by coincidence, to a unit stationed at Aberdeen, Maryland. World War I ended just days after Wiener's return to Aberdeen and Wiener was discharged from the military in February 1919.<ref>{{harvnb|Conway|Siegelman|2005|pp=43–44}}</ref>

===After the war===
[[File:MIT Building 10 and the Great Dome, Cambridge MA.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Wiener was regarded as a semi-legendary figure at MIT.]]
[[File:Wiener Zurich1932.tif|thumb|200px|Norbert (standing) and Margaret Wiener (sitting) at the [[International Congress of Mathematicians]], Zurich, 1932]]
Wiener was unable to secure a permanent position at Harvard, a situation he attributed largely to [[anti-Semitism]] at the university and in particular the antipathy of Harvard mathematician [[George David Birkhoff|G. D. Birkhoff]].<ref>{{harvnb|Conway|Siegelman|2005|pp=40, 45}}</ref> He was also rejected for a position at the [[University of Melbourne]]. At [[William Fogg Osgood|W. F. Osgood's]] suggestion, Wiener was hired as an instructor of mathematics at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]], where, after his promotion to professor, he spent the remainder of his career. For many years his photograph was prominently displayed in the [[Infinite Corridor]] and often used in giving directions, but by 2017 it had been removed.{{cn|date=May 2026}}

In 1926, Wiener returned to Europe as a [[Guggenheim scholar]]. He spent most of his time at Göttingen and with Hardy at Cambridge, working on [[Brownian motion]], the [[Fourier integral]], [[Dirichlet's problem]], harmonic analysis, and the [[Tauberian theorems]].

In 1926, Wiener's parents arranged his marriage to a German immigrant, Margaret Engemann; they had two daughters. His sister, Constance (1898–1973), married mathematician [[Philip Franklin]]. Their daughter, Janet, Wiener's niece, married mathematician [[Václav E. Beneš]].<ref>[http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Franklin.html Franklin biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713153354/http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Franklin.html |date=2018-07-13 }}. History.mcs.st-and.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2013-11-02.</ref> Wiener's sister Bertha (1902–1995) married the botanist [[Carroll William Dodge]].

Many tales, perhaps apocryphal, were told of Norbert Wiener at MIT, especially concerning his absent-mindedness.  It was said that he returned home once to find his house empty. He inquired of a neighborhood girl the reason, and she said that the family had moved elsewhere that day. He thanked her for the information and she replied, "It's ok, Daddy, Mommy sent me to get you".<ref>{{cite book |first1=Colin |last1=Adams |first2=Joel |last2=Hass |first3=Abigail |last3=Thompson |year=1998 |title=How to Ace Calculus: The streetwise guide |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=9780716731603 |page=8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MD96Vp60mLYC&pg=PA8 }}</ref>
Asked about the story, Wiener's daughter reportedly asserted that "he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened&nbsp;..."<ref>{{cite web |first=Richard |last=Harter |title=Weiner |website=richardhartersworld.com |date=December 8, 2020 |url=https://richardhartersworld.com/weiner/ }}</ref>

In the run-up to [[World War II]] (1939–45) Wiener became a member of the [[China Aid Society]] and the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars.<ref>{{cite book |last=Masani|first=Pesi R. |date=2012-12-06 |title=Norbert Wiener 1894–1964|page=167|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=anD0BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA167 |url-status=live |access-date=2016-03-20 |publisher=Birkhäuser |isbn=978-3-0348-9252-0|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170222172541/https://books.google.com/books?id=anD0BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA167 |archive-date=2017-02-22 }}</ref> (Wiener had served as a visiting lecturer at [[Tsinghua University|Tsing-Hua University]] in 1935-1936.<ref name=":9">{{Cite book |last1=Mehra |first1=Jagdish |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=njWjKuYNQSgC |title=The Historical Development of Quantum Theory |last2=Rechenberg |first2=Helmut |date=2000-12-28 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-0-387-95177-5 |page=247 |language=en}}</ref>) He was interested in placing scholars such as [[Yuk-Wing Lee]] and [[Antoni Zygmund]] who had lost their positions.<ref>{{cite report |last=McCavitt |first=Mary Jane |date=2 September 2009 |title=Guide to the Papers of Norbert Wiener|page=15 |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries |url=https://libraries.mit.edu/archives/research/collections/collections-mc/pdf/mc22.pdf |url-status=dead |access-date=2016-03-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151112055149/http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/research/collections/collections-mc/pdf/mc22.pdf |archive-date=November 12, 2015 }}</ref>

===During and after World War II===
In 1941, Wiener accepted an appointment with the [[National Defense Research Committee]] at the invitation of [[Vannevar Bush]].<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1941 |title=The National Defense Research Committee |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1668152 |journal=Science |volume=93 |issue=2415 |pages=352–354 |doi=10.1126/science.93.2415.352.b |jstor=1668152 |pmid=17734546 |issn=0036-8075}}</ref> Assigned to work with the NDRC's Fire Control committee, his work on the automatic aiming and firing of [[anti-aircraft gun]]s caused Wiener to investigate [[information theory]] independently of [[Claude Shannon]] and to invent the [[Wiener filter]].<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Mindell |first=David A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXsOPhh-fTgC |title=Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics |date=2003-04-30 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-0-8018-7774-2 |pages=276–288 |language=en}}</ref> (The now-standard practice of modeling an information source as a random process—in other words, as a variety of noise—is due to Wiener.) Initially his anti-aircraft work led him to write, with [[Arturo Rosenblueth]] and his research assistant [[Julian Bigelow]], the 1943 article 'Behavior, Purpose and Teleology', which was published in [[Philosophy of Science]]. Subsequently his anti-aircraft work led him to formulate [[cybernetics]].<ref>{{harvnb|Conway|Siegelman|2005|p=12}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first=Peter |last=Galison |date=Autumn 1994 |title=The ontology of the enemy: Norbert Wiener and the cybernetic vision |journal=[[Critical Inquiry (journal)|Critical Inquiry]] |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=228–266 |doi=10.1086/448747 |jstor=1343893 }}</ref><ref name=":8" /> Wiener left the NDRC when his contract ended in 1943.<ref name=":8" />

After the war, his fame helped MIT to recruit a research team in [[cognitive science]], composed of researchers in [[neuropsychology]] and the mathematics and [[biophysics]] of the nervous system, including [[Warren Sturgis McCulloch]] and [[Walter Pitts]]. These men later made pioneering contributions to [[computer science]] and [[artificial intelligence]]. Soon after the group was formed, Wiener suddenly ended all contact with its members, mystifying his colleagues. This emotionally traumatized Pitts, and led to his career decline. In their biography of Wiener, [[Flo Conway|Conway]] and [[Jim Siegelman|Siegelman]] suggest that Wiener's wife Margaret, who detested McCulloch's [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] lifestyle, engineered the breach.<ref>{{harvnb|Conway|Siegelman|2005|pp=223–7}}</ref>

[[Patrick D. Wall (scientist)|Patrick D. Wall]] speculated that after the publication of ''Cybernetics'', Wiener asked McCulloch for some physiological facts about the brain that he could then theorize. McCulloch told him "a mixture of what was known to be true and what McCulloch thought should be". Wiener then theorized it, went to a physiology congress, and was shot down. Wiener was convinced that McCulloch had set him up.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Arbib |first=Michael A |date=2000 |title=Warren McCulloch's Search for the Logic of the Nervous System |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/46496/pdf |journal=Perspectives in Biology and Medicine |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=193–216 |doi=10.1353/pbm.2000.0001 |pmid=10804585 |issn=1529-8795|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Wiener later helped develop the theories of cybernetics, [[robotics]], computer control, and [[automation]]. He discussed the modeling of neurons with [[John von Neumann]], and in a letter from November 1946 von Neumann presented his thoughts in advance of a meeting with Wiener.<ref>Letters to Norbert Wiener in ''John von Neumann: Selected Letters'', edited by Miklós Rédei, in ''History of Mathematics, Volume 27'', jointly published by the American Mathematical Society and the London Mathematical Society, 2005</ref>

Wiener always shared his theories and findings with other researchers, and credited the contributions of others. These included [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] researchers and their findings. Wiener's acquaintance with them caused him to be regarded with suspicion during the [[Cold War]]. He was a strong advocate of automation to improve the standard of living, and to end economic underdevelopment. His ideas became influential in [[India]], whose government he advised during the 1950s.

After the war, Wiener became increasingly concerned with what he believed was political interference with scientific research, and the militarization of science. His article "A Scientist Rebels" from the January 1947 issue of ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]''<ref>{{cite news |author=Wiener, Norbert |title=A Scientist Rebels |newspaper=Atlantic Monthly |page=46 |date=January 1947 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6gsAAAAAMBAJ&q=%22have+received+from+you+a+note+in+which+you+state+that+you+are+engaged+in+a+project+concerning+controlled+missiles,+and+in+which+you+request+a+copy+of+a+paper+which+I+wrote+for+the+National+Defense+Research+Committee+during+the+war%22&pg=PA31 |access-date=2018-10-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181026182625/https://books.google.com.au/books?id=6gsAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=%22have+received+from+you+a+note+in+which+you+state+that+you+are+engaged+in+a+project+concerning+controlled+missiles,+and+in+which+you+request+a+copy+of+a+paper+which+I+wrote+for+the+National+Defense+Research+Committee+during+the+war%22&source=bl&ots=u6UsotYzLj&sig=QKFlDSmBepkwLL_8b1s8mNctBZQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTitHlrKPeAhWKtY8KHQBTAtEQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ |archive-date=2018-10-26 |url-status=live }}</ref> urged scientists to consider the ethical implications of their work. After the war, he refused to accept any government funding or to work on military projects. The way Wiener's beliefs concerning nuclear weapons and the Cold War contrasted with those of von Neumann is the major theme of the book ''John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies|last=Heims|first=Steve Joshua|publisher=[[MIT Press]]|year=1980|isbn=978-0262081054|location=Cambridge}}</ref>

He continued his collaborations with Rosenblueth, visiting Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Cardiología (National Institute of Cardiology) at the latter's invitation beginning in 1945. He wrote much of ''Cybernetics'' while in residence there.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tangherlini |first=Frank R. |date=2008-04-01 |title=A brief etymology of cybernetics |url=https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2911161 |journal=Physics Today |volume=61 |issue=4 |pages=15 |doi=10.1063/1.2911161 |bibcode=2008PhT....61d..15T |issn=0031-9228|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Rosenblueth and Wiener subsequently received a five-year grant from the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] to support their collaboration in Mexico and at MIT.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Belzer |first1=Jack |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KUgNGCJB4agC |title=Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology: Volume 14 - Very Large Data Base Systems to Zero-Memory and Markov Information Source |last2=Holzman |first2=Albert G. |last3=Kent |first3=Allen |date=1980-04-01 |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-0-8247-2214-2 |language=en}}</ref>  Together, they developed "the first mathematical model of circus movement reentry" in 1946.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Jalife |first1=Jose |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ypwkqcyll3cC |title=Basic Cardiac Electrophysiology for the Clinician |last2=Delmar |first2=Mario |last3=Anumonwo |first3=Justus |last4=Berenfeld |first4=Omer |last5=Kalifa |first5=Jerome |date=2011-08-24 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4443-6037-0 |language=en}}</ref> 

He was a Fulbright scholar at the [[Collège de France]] (1951), visiting lecturer at the [[Tata Institute of Fundamental Research]] (1953-1954), guest professor at the [[Indian Statistical Institute]], Calcutta (1955-1956), the University of Naples (1960-1961), and the [[Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience|Netherlands Central Institute for Brain Research]] (1964), where he was honorary head of the neurocybernetics department. Netherlands.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Browder |first=Felix E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o8ZxnFkK2wkC |title=Norbert Wiener, 1894-1964 |date=1966-12-31 |publisher=American Mathematical Soc. |isbn=978-0-8218-9536-8 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":9" /><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k2H_vsFhiREC |title=Cybernetics of the Nervous system |date=1965-01-01 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-08-086141-8 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":10">{{Cite book |last1=Mandrekar |first1=Vidyadhar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gX_HCQAAQBAJ |title=Proceedings of the Norbert Wiener Centenary Congress, 1994: Michigan State University, November 27-December 3, 1994 |last2=Masani |first2=Pesi Rustom |date=1997 |publisher=American Mathematical Soc. |isbn=978-0-8218-0452-0 |pages=539–541 |language=en}}</ref>  

Wiener was a participant of the [[Macy conferences]].

===Personal life===
In 1926, Wiener married Margaret Engemann, an assistant professor of modern languages at [[Juniata College]].<ref>{{MacTutor Biography|id=Wiener_Norbert}}</ref> They had two daughters.<ref>{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1063/1.2216967|title = Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener, the Father of Cybernetics, Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, Basic Books, New York, 2005. $27.50 (423 pp.). ISBN 0-7382-0368-8|year = 2006|last1 = Brown|first1 = Alexander F.|journal = Physics Today|volume = 59|issue = 5|pages = 59–60|doi-access = free}}</ref>

Wiener admitted in his autobiography ''I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy'' to abusing [[Benzedrine]] throughout his life without being fully aware of its dangers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jacobs |first=Alan |date=2012-04-15 |title=The Lost World of Benzedrine |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/the-lost-world-of-benzedrine/255904/ |access-date=2022-11-25 |website=The Atlantic |language=en-US}}</ref>

A famous anecdote demonstrates his dedication to teaching:
{{quote
|text=One day, [he] was walking across the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While he was walking, someone stopped him and asked a question about [[Fourier analysis]]. Wiener didn’t hesitate. He took out a small piece of paper and carefully wrote down the answer, explaining it step by step. The person was very thankful, said thanks, and started to leave. But Wiener stopped him and asked, “Just one moment—which direction was I walking when you met me?” The man pointed in the direction Wiener had been heading. Wiener smiled and said, “Good. That means I’ve already had my lunch.”<ref>{{cite book |last=Krantz|first=Steven G.|date=2002|title=Mathematical Apocrypha: Stories and Anecdotes of Mathematicians and the Mathematical|publisher=The Mathematical Association of America|location=Washington, DC|isbn=0883855399|page=24-25|url=https://archive.org/details/mathematicalapoc00stev/page/24/mode/2up?q=%22Norbert+Wiener+was+walking+across+the+MIT+campus%22|access-date=2026-05-31}}</ref>
}}

Wiener died on March 18, 1964, aged 69, in [[Stockholm]], from a heart attack. Wiener and his wife are buried at the Vittum Hill Cemetery in [[Sandwich, New Hampshire]].

===Awards and honors===
* Wiener was a Plenary Speaker of the [[International Congress of Mathematicians|ICM]] in 1936 at Oslo and in 1950 at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
* Wiener won the [[Bôcher Memorial Prize]] in 1933 and the [[National Medal of Science]] in 1963, presented by President Johnson at a White House Ceremony in January 1964, shortly before Wiener's death.
* Wiener won the 1965 U.S. [[National Book Award]] [[National Book Award for Philosophy and Religion|in Science, Philosophy and Religion]] for ''[[God & Golem, Inc.]]: A Comment on Certain Points where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion''.<ref name="nba1965">[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1965 "National Book Awards – 1965"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190131201606/https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1965/ |date=2019-01-31 }}. [[National Book Foundation]]. Retrieved 2012-03-05.</ref>
* The [[Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics]] was endowed in 1967 in honor of Norbert Wiener by MIT's mathematics department and is provided jointly by the [[American Mathematical Society]] and [[Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics]].
* The [[Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility]] awarded annually by [[Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility|CPSR]], was established in 1987 in honor of Wiener to recognize contributions by computer professionals to socially responsible use of computers.
* The crater [[Wiener (crater)|Wiener]] on the [[Far side (Moon)|far side]] of the [[Moon]] is named after him.
* The Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications, at the [[University of Maryland, College Park]], is named in his honor.<ref>{{cite web |title=Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications |publisher=[[University of Maryland, College Park]] |url=http://www.norbertwiener.umd.edu/ |access-date=2009-09-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180404174135/http://www.norbertwiener.umd.edu/ |archive-date=2018-04-04 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* Robert A. Heinlein named a spaceship after him in his 1957 novel ''[[Citizen of the Galaxy]]'', a "Free Trader" ship called the ''Norbert Wiener'' mentioned in Chapter 14.
* The [[Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications]] (NWC) in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Maryland, College Park is devoted to the scientific and mathematical legacy of Norbert Wiener.  The [http://www.norbertwiener.umd.edu/ NWC website] highlights the research activities of the center. Further, each year the Norbert Wiener Center hosts the February Fourier Talks, a two-day national conference displaying advances in pure and applied harmonic analysis in industry, government, and academia.
* Honorary degrees: [[Tufts University]] (1946), [[National Autonomous University of Mexico|University of Mexico]] (1951), [[Grinnell College]] (1957)<ref name=":10" />

=== Doctoral students ===
* [[Shikao Ikehara]] (PhD 1930)
* [[Dorothy Walcott Weeks]] (PhD 1930)
* [[Norman Levinson]] (Sc.D. 1935)
* [[Brockway McMillan]] (PhD 1939)
* [[Abe Gelbart]] (PhD 1940)
* [[John P. Costas (engineer)]] (PhD 1951)
* [[Amar Bose]] (Sc.D. 1956)
* [[George Zames]] (Sc.D. 1960)
* [[Colin Cherry]] (PhD 1956)<ref name=":10" />

==Work==
{{blockquote|Information is information, not matter or energy.|Norbert Wiener|''[[Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine]]''}}

Wiener was an early studier of [[stochastic processes|stochastic]] and mathematical [[Noise (disambiguation)#Noise in mathematics|noise]] processes, contributing work relevant to [[electronic engineering]], [[electronic communication]], and [[control system]]s. It was Wiener's idea to model a signal as if it were an exotic type of noise, giving it a sound mathematical basis. The example often given to students is that English text could be modeled as a random string of letters and spaces, where each letter of the alphabet (and the space) has an assigned probability. But Wiener dealt with analog signals, where such a simple example doesn't exist. Wiener's early work on information theory and signal processing was limited to analog signals, and was largely forgotten with the development of the digital theory.<ref>''John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death'', Steve Joshua Heims, MIT Press, 1980</ref>

Wiener is one of the key originators of [[cybernetics]], a formalization of the notion of [[feedback]], with many implications for [[engineering]], [[systems control]], [[computer science]], [[biology]], [[philosophy]], and the organization of [[society]]. While he claims the field arose during his personal development, it has roots in the works of [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Leibnitz]], [[Søren Kierkegaard|Kierkegaard]], [[Charles Babbage|Babbage]], [[James Clerk Maxwell|Maxwell]], and [[Josiah Willard Gibbs|Gibbs]].<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite journal|last=McClintock|first=Robert|date=1966|title=Machines and Vitalists: Reflections on the Ideology of Cybernetics|journal=The American Scholar|volume=35|issue=2|pages=249-257|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41209364}}</ref> His work with cybernetics influenced [[Gregory Bateson]] and [[Margaret Mead]], and through them, [[anthropology]], [[sociology]], and [[education]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Heims |first=Steve P. |date=April 1977 |title=Gregory Bateson and the mathematicians: From interdisciplinary interaction to societal functions |journal=Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=141–159 |pmid=325068 |doi=10.1002/1520-6696(197704)13:2<141::AID-JHBS2300130205>3.0.CO;2-G }}</ref>


[[File:Wiener process 3d.png|thumb|230px|In the mathematical field of probability, the "[[Wiener sausage]]" is a neighborhood of the trace of a [[Brownian motion]] up to a time  {{mvar|t}},  given by taking all points within a fixed distance of Brownian motion. It can be visualized as a cylinder of fixed radius the centerline of which is Brownian motion.]]

===Wiener equation===
A simple mathematical representation of [[Brownian motion]], the [[Wiener equation]], named after Wiener, assumes the current [[velocity]] of a [[fluid]] particle fluctuates randomly.

===Wiener filter===
For signal processing, the [[Wiener filter]] is a [[filter (signal processing)|filter]] proposed by Wiener during the 1940s and published in 1942 as a classified document, which was funded by the [[National Defense Research Committee]]. Its purpose is to reduce the amount of [[noise]] present in a signal by comparison with an estimate of the desired noiseless signal. Wiener developed the filter at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT to predict the position of German bombers from radar reflections. What emerged was a mathematical theory of great generality – a theory for predicting the future as best one can on the basis of incomplete information about the past. It was a statistical theory that included applications that did not, strictly speaking, predict the future, but only tried to remove noise. It made use of Wiener's earlier work on [[integral equations]] and [[Fourier transforms]].<ref>''John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death'', Steve Joshua Heims, MIT Press, 1980, p.183</ref>
<ref>{{cite book |first=Norbert |last=Wiener |author-link=Norbert Wiener |year=1949 |orig-year=1942 |title=Extrapolation, Interpolation, and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series |publisher=MIT Press}}
: Originally published as a classified document in 1942</ref>

=== Nonlinear control theory ===
Wiener studied [[polynomial chaos]], a key piece of which is the Hermite-Laguerre expansion. This was developed in detail in ''Nonlinear Problems in Random Theory''.

Wiener applied Hermite-Laguerre expansion to nonlinear system identification and control. Specifically, a nonlinear system can be identified by inputting a white noise process and computing the Hermite-Laguerre expansion of its output. The identified system can then be controlled.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Brick |first=Donald B. |date=March 1968 |title=On the applicability of Wiener's canonical expansions |journal=IEEE Transactions on Systems Science and Cybernetics |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=29–38 |doi=10.1109/TSSC.1968.300185 |bibcode=1968IJSSC...4...29B |issn=0536-1567 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Harris |first1=G.H. |last2=Lapidus |first2=Leon |date=1967-06-01 |title=Identification of Nonlinear Systems |journal=Industrial & Engineering Chemistry |language=en |volume=59 |issue=6 |pages=66–81 |doi=10.1021/ie50690a012 |issn=0019-7866 |url=https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie50690a012 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>
[[File:Norbert Wiener.webp|thumb|Wiener in [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]], 1963]]

===In mathematics ===
Wiener took a great interest in the mathematical theory of [[Brownian motion]] (named after [[Robert Brown (Scottish botanist from Montrose)|Robert Brown]]) proving many results now widely known, such as the non-differentiability of the paths. Consequently, the one-dimensional version of Brownian motion was named the [[Wiener process]]. It is the best known of the [[Lévy process]]es, [[càdlàg]] stochastic processes with stationary statistically [[independent increments]], and occurs frequently in pure and applied mathematics, physics and economics (e.g. on the stock-market).

[[Wiener's tauberian theorem]], a 1932 result of Wiener, developed [[Tauberian theorem]]s in [[summability theory]], on the face of it a chapter of [[real analysis]], by showing that most of the known results could be encapsulated in a principle taken from [[harmonic analysis]]. In its present formulation, the theorem of Wiener does not have any obvious association with Tauberian theorems, which deal with [[infinite series]]; the translation from results formulated for integrals, or using the language of [[functional analysis]] and [[Banach algebra]]s, is however a relatively routine process.

The [[Paley–Wiener theorem]] relates growth properties of [[entire function]]s on '''C'''<sup>n</sup> and Fourier transformation of Schwartz distributions of compact support.

The [[Wiener–Khinchin theorem]], (also known as the ''Wiener – Khintchine theorem'' and the ''Khinchin – Kolmogorov theorem''), states that the power spectral density of a wide-sense-stationary random process is the Fourier transform of the corresponding autocorrelation function.

An [[abstract Wiener space]] is a mathematical object in [[measure theory]], used to construct a "decent", strictly positive and locally finite measure on an infinite-dimensional vector space. Wiener's original construction only applied to the space of real-valued continuous paths on the unit interval, known as [[classical Wiener space]]. Leonard Gross provided the generalization to the case of a general [[separable space|separable]] [[Banach space]].

The notion of a Banach space itself was discovered independently by both Wiener and [[Stefan Banach]] at around the same time.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wiener |first1=Norbert |year=1923 |title=Note on a paper of M. Banach |journal=Fund. Math. |volume=4 |pages=136–143 |doi=10.4064/fm-4-1-136-143 |doi-access=free }}
:See
{{cite book |last1=Albiac |first1=F. |last2=Kalton |first2=N. |author2-link=Nigel Kalton |year=2006 |title=Topics in Banach Space Theory |publisher=Springer |location=New York, NY |isbn=978-0-387-28141-4 |page=15 |series=[[Graduate Texts in Mathematics]] |volume=233 }}</ref>

== Views ==

=== Judaism ===
Due to his ancestry, [[Judaism]] played a significant role in shaping his character and sense of self. While neither his father nor Wiener were religious, he credits the Jewish social and cultural structure in fostering certain aspects of his development.<ref name=":1">{{harvnb|Wiener|2018a|pp=12}}</ref> He writes: "The Jews seem to me primarily a community and a social entity although most of them have been members of a religion as well".<ref name=":1" /> Even with the increased [[Rapprochement|rapprochement]] between Jewish and non-Jewish communities, he notes that particular facets of Jewish life and culture have persisted.<ref name=":1" /> 

Jewish [[Family|family structures]] are described by Wiener as being closer than their European and American peers, from which religious, [[racial prejudice]] and minority prejudice has had an effect historically "modified their psychology and their attitude toward life".<ref name=":1" /> He believes that the emphasis and encouragement of [[Scholarly method|scholarly]] pursuits in Judaism and community structures—as compared with [[Christianity]] historically—meant that biological and cultural traits tended to solidify over time as compared to Christianity where there were greater rates of diffusion.<ref name=":3">{{harvnb|Wiener|2018a|pp=14}}</ref>

{{blockquote|  Let me insert here a word or two about the Jewish family structure which is not irrelevant to the Jewish tradition of learning. At all times, the young learned man, and especially the rabbi, whether or not he had an ounce of practical judgment and was able to make a good career for himself in life, was always a match for the daughter of the rich merchant.}}

Because of such tendencies within Jewish culture, this meant scholars were more likely to have larger families which—in his view, which according to Wiener was also shared by his fellow collegiate and friend [[J. B. S. Haldane]]—amplified certain biological and cultural traits within the Jewish community.<ref name=":3" /> He expressed ambivilance on issues related to Jewish [[nationalism]] and [[Zionism]], and distanced the Jewish character from such manifestations.<ref name=":1" /> He did not see Jewish [[ethnic identity|identity]] as resting on such institutions:<ref name=":1" />

{{blockquote| I am saying nothing about Zionism and other forms of Jewish nationalism, for the Jews are much older than any movements of this sort which have amounted to more than literary and ritual conventions, and might well continue to exist even though the new state of Israel succumbs or gives way to other manifestations of nationalism.}}

While his family had a tradition of claiming descendance from [[Moses Maimonides]], praising their emphasis on [[Secularity|secular]] [[learning]], he was more certain of being descended from [[Aqiba Eger]], who—whilst being one of the greatest [[Talmud|talmudic]] authorities according to Wiener—opposed it.<ref name=":2">{{harvnb|Wiener|2018a|pp=13}}</ref>

==In popular culture==

* His work with [[Mary Brazier]] is referred to in [[Avis DeVoto]]'s ''As Always, Julia''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Reardon |first=Joan |year=2010 |title=As Always, Julia |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |page=223 }}</ref>
* A flagship named after him appears briefly in ''[[Citizen of the Galaxy]]'' by [[Robert Heinlein]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Heinlein |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Heinlein |year=1957 |title=Citizen of the Galaxy |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |at=chapter&nbsp;14 }}</ref>
* The song "Dedicated to Norbert Wiener" appears as the second track on the 1980 album ''Why?'' by G.G. Tonet (Luigi Tonet), released on the Italian ''It Why'' label.<ref>{{cite web |title=G.G. Tonet – Why?  |website=Discogs |year=1980 |url=https://www.discogs.com/GG-Tonet-Why/release/1078999 |url-status=live |access-date=2 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200225090233/https://www.discogs.com/GG-Tonet-Why/release/1078999 |archive-date=25 February 2020 }}</ref>
* He is mentioned in [[Dan Simmon]]’s science fiction novel ''[[Hyperion (Simmons novel)|Hyperion]]'' when discussing artificial intelligence and God.

==Publications==
Wiener wrote many books and hundreds of articles:{{efn|A full bibliography is given by the Cybernetics Society.<ref name= cyber >{{cite web |title=Publications of Norbert Wiener |date=5 February 2007 |website=Cybernetics Society (cybsoc.org) |url=http://www.cybsoc.org/wiener.htm |url-status= live |access-date=  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070205052158/http://www.cybsoc.org/wiener.htm|archive-date=5 February 2007 }}</ref>}}
* 1914, {{cite journal|ref={{harvid|Wiener|1914}} |title=A simplification in the logic of relations |year=1912–1914 |journal=Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society |volume=13 |pages=387–390 }} Reprinted in {{cite book |first=Jean |last=van Heijenoort |author-link=Jean van Heijenoort |year=1967 |title=From Frege to Gödel: A source book in mathematical logic, 1879–1931 |publisher=Harvard University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/fromfregetogodel0000vanh |url-access=registration |pages=[https://archive.org/details/fromfregetogodel0000vanh/page/224 224]–227 }}
* 1930, {{cite journal |last1=Wiener |first1=Norbert |year=1930 |title=Generalized harmonic analysis |journal=Acta Math. |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=117–258 |doi=10.1007/BF02546511 |doi-access=free }}
* 1933, {{cite book |title=The Fourier Integral and Certain of its Applications |date=November 17, 1988 |publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-521-35884-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L1U4AAAAIAAJ |via=Google }} reprint by Dover, CUP Archive 1988 {{isbn|0-521-35884-1}}
* 1942, ''[https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/4361/Extrapolation-Interpolation-and-Smoothing-of Extrapolation, Interpolation and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series]''. A war-time classified report nicknamed "the yellow peril" because of the color of the cover and the difficulty of the subject. Published postwar 1949 [[MIT Press]].
* 1948, ''[[Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine]].'' Paris, (Hermann & Cie) & Camb. Mass. (MIT Press) {{isbn|978-0-262-73009-9}}; 2nd revised ed. 1961.
* 1950, ''[[The Human Use of Human Beings]]''. The Riverside Press (Houghton Mifflin Co.).
* 1958, ''Nonlinear Problems in Random Theory''. MIT Press & Wiley.
* 1964, ''[[God & Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion]]''. MIT Press.
* 1966, ''Generalized Harmonic Analysis and Tauberian Theorems''. MIT Press.
* 1993, ''[[Invention: The Care and Feeding of Ideas]]''; This was written in 1954 but Wiener abandoned the project at the editing stage and returned his advance.  MIT Press published it posthumously in 1993.

Wiener's papers are collected in the following works: 
* 1964, ''Selected Papers of Norbert Wiener''. Cambridge Mass. 1964 (MIT Press & SIAM)
* 1976–84, ''The Mathematical Work of Norbert Wiener''. Masani P (ed) 4 vols, Camb. Mass. (MIT Press). This contains a complete collection of Wiener's mathematical papers with commentaries, in the following volumes: Vol. 1, ''Mathematical philosophy and foundations; potential theory; Brownian movement, Wiener integrals, ergodic and chaos theories, turbulence and statistical mechanics'' ({{ISBN|0262230704}}); Vol. 2, ''Generalized harmonic analysis and Tauberian theory, classical harmonic and complex analysis'' ({{ISBN|0262230925}}); Vol. 3, ''The Hopf-Wiener integral equation; Prediction and filtering; Quantum mechanics and relativity; Miscellaneous mathematical papers'' ({{ISBN|0262231077}}); and Vol. 4, ''Cybernetics, science, and society; Ethics, aesthetics, and literary criticism; Book reviews and obituaries.'' ({{ISBN|0262231239}})

Fiction:
* 1959, ''The Tempter''. Random House (on [[Oliver Heaviside]]'s invention for lower distortion on telegraph lines and his fight with [[AT&T]] for the proper recognition of his analysis)<ref name=Montagnini-2017/>{{rp|style=ama|pages=249–252}}

Autobiography:
* {{cite book|title=Norbert Wiener — A Life in Cybernetics|author=Wiener, Norbert|editor=Kline, Ronald|url=https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/3147/Norbert-Wiener-A-Life-in-CyberneticsEx-Prodigy-My|publisher=[[MIT Press]]|isbn=9780262535441|year=2018}} {{open access}} Includes both volumes of Wiener's autobiography. 
* 1953, ''Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth''. MIT Press.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Narasimha, R.|author-link=Roddam Narasimha|title=Review of ''Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth'' by Norbert Wiener|journal=Resonance|date=January 1999|pages=76–79|doi=10.1007/BF02837158|s2cid=123661339|url=https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/004/01/0076-0079}}</ref>
* 1956, ''I am a Mathematician''. London (Gollancz).

Under the name "W. Norbert":
* 1952, ''The Brain'' and other short science fiction in [[Tech Engineering News]].

==See also==
{{Portal|Systems science}}
{{cols|colwidth=26em}}
* [[Autowave]]
* [[Box–Muller transform]]
* [[Cellular automaton]]
* [[Cybernetics in the Soviet Union]]
* [[Dualism (cybernetics)]]
* [[Functional integration]]
* [[Operational calculus]]
* [[Smoothing problem (stochastic processes)]]
* [[List of things named after Norbert Wiener]]
{{colend}}

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist|25em}}

==Further reading==
Wiener's life and work has been examined in many works:

;Books and theses:
{{refbegin|25em|small=y}}
* {{cite book |author=Almira, J. M. |title=Norbert Wiener. A mathematician among engineers. |url=https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12919#t=aboutBook |publisher=World Scientific |year=2022 |doi=10.1142/12919 |isbn=978-981-125-936-4|s2cid=247882031 }}
* {{cite thesis |type=Ph.D. |author=Bluma, Lars |title=Norbert Wiener und die Entstehung der Kybernetik im Zweiten Weltkrieg: eine historische Fallstudie zur Verbindung von Wissenschaft, Technik und Gesellschaft |publisher=Münster |year=2005 |isbn=3-8258-8345-0 |oclc=60744372 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Conway |first1=Flo |last2=Siegelman |first2=Jim |title=Dark Hero of the Information Age: in search of Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics |url=https://archive.org/details/darkheroofinform0000conw |url-access=registration |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-7382-0368-3 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Faucheux |first1=Michel |last2=Wiener |first2=Norbert |title=le Golem et la cybernetique |publisher=Editions du Sandre |year=2008 }}
* {{cite book |author=Gleick, James |author-link=James Gleick |title=The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood |publisher=Pantheon Books |location=New York |year=2011 |title-link=The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood }}
* {{cite book |author=Grattan-Guinness, Ivor |author-link=Ivor Grattan-Guinness |title=The Search for Mathematical Roots 1870–1940 |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2000 |pages=290, 296, 394, 395, 410,[https://books.google.com/books?id=LcCx9MROpbUC&pg=PA419 419–422], 427, 442, 528, 531, 536, 538, 567 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LcCx9MROpbUC |isbn=978-1400824045}}
* {{cite book |last=Heims |first=Steve J. |title=John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death |publisher=MIT Press |year=1980 |isbn=978-0-262-08105-4 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/johnvonneumannno00heim }}
* {{cite book |last=Heims |first=Steve J. |title=Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America. The Cybernetics Group, 1946–1953 |publisher=MIT Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-262-58123-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mM7tAAAAMAAJ }}
* {{cite book |author=Ilgauds, Hans Joachim |title=Norbert Wiener |publisher=Teubner |year=1980 |volume=45 |series=Biographien hervorragender Naturwissenschaftler, Techniker und Mediziner |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WMnuAAAAMAAJ}}''.''
* {{cite book |author=Masani, P. Rustom |title=Norbert Wiener 1894–1964 |publisher=Birkhauser |year=1990|isbn=0817622462|oclc=19389460}}
* {{cite book |last=Montagnini |first=Leone |year=2017 |title=Harmonies of Disorder. Norbert Wiener, A Mathematician-Philosopher of our time |publisher=Springer |location=New York - Berlin - Heidelberg |isbn=978-3-319-50656-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9_YxDwAAQBAJ}}
{{refend}}

;Articles:
{{refbegin|25em|small=y}}
* {{cite web |author=Bynum, Terrell W. |title=Norbert Wiener's Vision: The impact of "the automatic age" on our moral lives |url=http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/research/areas/ieg/e-library/bynum.pdf }}
* {{cite journal |author=Hardesty, Larry |title=The Original Absent-Minded Professor - An MIT institution, Norbert Wiener did seminal work in control theory and signal processing |journal=MIT Technology Review |date=July–August 2011 |url=https://www.technologyreview.com/2011/06/21/193920/the-original-absent-minded-professor/}}
* {{cite journal |title=Norbert Wiener 1894–1964 |journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. |volume=72 |issue=1 Part 2 |year=1966 |url=https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1966-72-01/home.html | doi = 10.1090/S0002-9904-1966-11450-7 |doi-access=free }} {{open access}} Volume 72, issue 1, part 2 of the Bulletin of the American Math Society is a special issue that features a number of articles about Wiener.
{{refend}}

;Archives:
{{refbegin|25em|small=y}} 
* The Norbert Wiener papers are held at the [[MIT Libraries]] Department of Special Collections. [https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/resources/600/collection_organization Finding aid and biography].
{{refend}}

==External links==
*{{Commons category-inline}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
* [http://www.norbertwiener.umd.edu/ Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications]
* [https://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_wiener.htm Norbert Wiener and Cybernetics] – Living Internet
* {{MathGenealogy|id=25222}}
* {{Find a Grave|7304697|Dr Norbert Wiener}}
* [https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/science-and-technology/mathematics-biographies/norbert-wiener "Norbert Wiener" in ''Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography'']
* {{Cite web |last=de Bono |first=Edward |date=1981 |title=Norbert Wiener - Wiener Today |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdu16JAzgw8 |access-date=2023-06-05 |website=Youtube |format=TV video}}

{{Cybernetics}}
{{Systems}}
{{Winners of the National Medal of Science|math-stat-comp}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiener, Norbert}}
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