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A NEW SCIENCE 7

I WAS THERE: “WIENER WALKS”

Fellow faculty members and students at MIT found Norbert Wiener
to be an intriguing, baffling, and sometimes infuriating “human
phenomenon.” In their biography of Wiener, Flo Conway and Jim
Siegelman described what became known as “Wiener Walks”:

[Wiener] was a man in near perpetual motion. Inquisitive, gregarious,
garrulous. Wiener made a habit of walking MIT’s maze inside and out. By
the mid-1930s, the entire campus had adapted to the daily spectacle of the
bespectacled Wiener waddling along the university’s byways and beaten
paths, waving an ever-present cigar, expounding in his booming voice on
the most near and far-fetched topics . . .

Many amusing Wiener stories became part of campus lore. One
time Wiener apparently went into the wrong classroom and delivered
a lecture to the bemused students. Another time Wiener entered a
class (one of his own, this time), strode up to the blackboard, wrote
a “4,” and walked out. Only later did the students realize that Wiener
had indicated that he would be away for four weeks’ vacation.
There was usually a method to Wiener’s waywardness, though.
Conway and Siegelman quoted one student describing his encounter
with Wiener:

He stopped me halfway, we happened to be going in opposite direc-
tions, and he raised some question he wanted to discuss. When we finished
talking, he started to walk away and then he turned around suddenly,
came back and asked, “By the way, which way was I headed before we
met?” I said, “You were going toward Building 8.” And he said, “Thanks,
that means I’ve already had my lunch.”

Wiener could be rude and inconsiderate. He fell asleep easily
(he suffered from apnea, a condition where breathing is disrupted
and sleep interrupted). Yet Wiener could snore away quite loudly
during a lecture but then wake up and make a comment that seemed
perfectly relevant.