Page 22 - Modern Robotics Building Versatile Macines

2 Modern Robotics

Norbert Wiener contributed to many fields of mathematics and science, but
his development of cybernetics, the science of communication and control,
provided fundamental principles for the design of complex machines such as
robots. (©American Institute of Physics, Emilio Segré Archive)

cybernetics would form a crucial theoretical basis for modern
robotics and automation.

Child Prodigy

Norbert Wiener was born on November 26, 1894. His father was
a teacher of modern languages at the University of Missouri, and
his mother was also well educated and cultured. Wiener’s par-
ents recognized quickly that he was an exceptional child. Wiener
learned the alphabet when he was only 18 months old. When he
was little more than a toddler, Wiener loved to sit under the desk
in his father’s study and read books he had selected for their inter-
esting pictures and words that he could puzzle out. Illustrated