Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine by Norbert Wiener

Hardcover. Condition: Good. 1949. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Seventh Printing. Illustrated.

The first public usage of the term cybernetics comes from this book. A classic and influential work that laid the theoretical foundations for information theory and a timely text for contemporary informations theorists and practitioners.

With the influential book Cybernetics, first published in 1948, Norbert Wiener laid the theoretical foundations for the multidisciplinary field of cybernetics, the study of controlling the flow of information in systems with feedback loops, be they biological, mechanical, cognitive, or social. At the core of Wiener's theory is the message (information), sent and responded to (feedback); the functionality of a machine, organism, or society depends on the quality of messages. Information corrupted by noise prevents homeostasis, or equilibrium. And yet Cybernetics is as philosophical as it is technical, with the first chapter devoted to Newtonian and Bergsonian time and the philosophical mixed with the technical throughout.

Red cloth cover. Lower right corner bumped, light edgewear. Extremely marginal warping of cover, but else in very good condition. Clean interior free of markings and book remains tightly bound.