WIENER, NORBERT

born Nov. 26, 1894, Columbia, Mo., U.S. died March 18, 1964, Stockholm U.S. mathematician, who established the science of cybernetics, which is concerned with the common factors of control and communication in living organisms, automatic machines, and organizations. He attained international renown by formulating some of the most important contributions to mathematics in the 20th century. Additional reading Pesi R. Masani, Norbert Wiener, 18941964 (1989), is a biography. Steve J. Heims, John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death (1980), examines the philosophical differences between the two mathematicians in order to show the changing role of science in modern society.