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A NEW SCIENCE 5

where he was able to pursue the philosophy of mathematics. He
obtained his master’s degree in 1912, with the Ph.D. following only
a year later. Wiener’s doctoral dissertation was on mathematical
logic (rules for proving assertions). At this time, this was a “leading
edge” topic in which mathematicians were struggling to define the
limits of their field.
Along with his doctorate, Wiener had earned a fellowship that
allowed him to study with some of Europe’s most prominent math-
ematicians. These included British mathematician-philosophers
Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead (who had coauthored
a book called Principia Mathematica that defined modern math-
ematics), G. H. Hardy, as well as leading German figures such as
David Hilbert. After his return to the United States in 1915, Wiener
took various instructorships.
As the United States began to edge toward entering the world
war that had broken out in Europe in 1914, Wiener joined the
staff at the Proving Ground at Aberdeen, Maryland. He became
involved in the effort to find faster ways to calculate the tables
needed for aiming the increasingly rapid-firing artillery that was
coming into use.

Life at MIT

After the war, Wiener obtained a teaching position at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he would spend
the rest of his career. At the time Wiener arrived, mathematics was
only a secondary concern at that institution, which was principally
an engineering school. Wiener’s strong interest in the mathematical
explanation of physical processes meshed well with MIT professors
who were concerned about the institute’s lack of theoretical rigor
and the need for mathematical sophistication to match the complex-
ity of the new electronic devices researchers were creating.
During the 1920s, Wiener would make important contributions
to the study of Brownian motion (the seemingly random, continu-
ous movement of molecules) as well as harmonic analysis. The lat-
ter involves the breaking down of complex waveforms (such as in
electronic signals) into manageable components.