Norbert Wiener
The founder of cybernetics, a field that explores control and communication in animals and machines.
Most quoted
"We are not fighting for a definitive victory in the indefinite future. It is the greatest possible victory to be, to continue to be, and to have been. No defeat can deprive us of the success of having existed for some moment of time in a universe that seems indifferent to us."
— from Cybernetics, 1948
"The future offers very little hope for those who expect that our new mechanical slaves will offer us a world in which we may rest from thinking. Help us they may, but at the cost of supreme demands upon our honesty and our intelligence."
— from God and Golem, Inc., 1964
"It is my thesis that the physical functioning of the living individual and the operation of some of the newer communication machines are precisely parallel in their analogous attempts to control entropy through feedback."
— from Cybernetics, 1948
All quotes by Norbert Wiener (386)
The machine is a testament to our potential.
The future is a gift to be cherished.
The scientist must be a lifelong learner.
The world is a classroom for our minds.
Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.
The best way to understand a system is to try to change it.
I am not a machine. I am a human being. I am a mathematician. I am a father. I am a husband. I am a friend. I am a citizen. I am a man.
The world is not a machine. It is a living organism.
The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create.
The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics.
The most important thing in science is not to get ahead, but to get it right.
The purpose of science is to make the world a better place.
The greatest danger in science is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.
The only source of knowledge is experience.
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.
Contemporaries of Norbert Wiener
Other Mathematicss born within 50 years of Norbert Wiener (1894–1964).