Cybernetics

Historical Context Essay

Niran Abbas (Birkbeck, University of London)
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It is difficult to give the credit to any one individual for discovering the idea of “cybernetics”, but generally it is known to have been coined by MIT professor, Norbert Wiener, a mathematician, engineer and social philosopher in 1947. The term can be traced to the Greek “kubernetes” or “steersman,” and may be defined as the study of homeostatic control mechanisms in organisms and machines (the science of

communication

and

control

in animal and machine). By communication is meant the system of routes for moving vehicles, people or supplies, or the kind of entities or messages actually exchanged in the process of communication, like letters, telegrams, taped messages. Communications are the carriers of information. Control is defined as a constraining effect on a variable, a…

1091 words

Citation: Abbas, Niran. "Cybernetics". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 January 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=247, accessed 02 December 2024.]

247 Cybernetics 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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