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72-564: The 'Norby' novels were combined into collections (each with a new cover image and title) by Ace Books : Norby was originally a robot named the Searcher, created by the robot Mentor First on the planet Jamya. When the Mentor's robots were in danger of deactivation due to exhausting their fuel, the Searcher was deployed in order to find a promised refueling ship sent by the Others, the creators of

144-581: A PhD in June 1913, when he was only 19 years old, for a dissertation on mathematical logic (a comparison of the work of Ernst Schröder with that of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell ), supervised by Karl Schmidt, the essential results of which were published as Wiener (1914). He was one of the youngest to achieve such a feat. In that dissertation, he was the first to state publicly that ordered pairs can be defined in terms of elementary set theory . Hence relations can be defined by set theory, thus

216-464: A Frenchman named Marcel on a wild romp through time as they attempt try to find the origin of the device. Jeff meets a council of the Others in this book. The sixth book, Norby Finds a Villain introduces the character of Threezey the Clown, the alter ego of Ing. In this book, Ing/Threezey kidnaps Pera at a magic show and tries to use her to create a superbomb that will leave him as the only thing left in

288-459: A few years. Other genres also made an appearance, including nonfiction, gothic novels, media tie-in novelizations , and romances . Ace became known for the tête-bêche binding format used for many of its early books, although it did not originate the format. Most of the early titles were published in this "Ace Double" format, and Ace continued to issue books in varied genres, bound tête-bêche , until 1973. Ace, along with Ballantine Books ,

360-577: A freelance editor; both Carr and Wollheim went on to edit competing Year's Best Science Fiction anthology series. In 1969 Ace Books was acquired by Charter Communications in New York City. In 1977 Charter Communications was acquired by Grosset & Dunlap , and in 1982, Grosset & Dunlap was in turn acquired by G. P. Putnam's Sons . Ace was reputedly the only profitable element of the Grosset & Dunlap empire by this time. Ace soon became

432-593: A great interest in the mathematical theory of Brownian motion (named after Robert Brown ) proving many results now widely known, such as the non-differentiability of the paths. Consequently, the one-dimensional version of Brownian motion was named the Wiener process . It is the best known of the Lévy processes , càdlàg stochastic processes with stationary statistically independent increments , and occurs frequently in pure and applied mathematics, physics and economics (e.g. on

504-559: A heart attack. Wiener and his wife are buried at the Vittum Hill Cemetery in Sandwich, New Hampshire . Information is information, not matter or energy. Wiener was an early studier of stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering , electronic communication , and control systems . It was Wiener's idea to model a signal as if it were an exotic type of noise, giving it

576-610: A journalist for the Boston Herald , where he wrote a feature story on the poor labor conditions for mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts , but he was fired soon afterwards for his reluctance to write favorable articles about a politician the newspaper's owners sought to promote. Although Wiener eventually became a staunch pacifist, he eagerly contributed to the war effort in World War I. In 1916, with America's entry into

648-624: A key piece of which is the Hermite-Laguerre expansion. This was developed in detail in Nonlinear Problems in Random Theory . Wiener applied Hermite-Laguerre expansion to nonlinear system identification and control. Specifically, a nonlinear system can be identified by inputting a white noise process and computing the Hermite-Laguerre expansion of its output. The identified system can then be controlled. Wiener took

720-414: A number of lurid juvenile delinquent novels in the 1950s that are now very collectible, such as D-343, The Young Wolves by Edward De Roo and D-378, Out for Kicks by Wilene Shaw. With Ballantine Books , Ace was the dominant American science fiction paperback publisher in the 1950s and 1960s. Other publishers followed their lead, catering to the increasing audience for science fiction, but none matched

792-570: A participant of the Macy conferences . In 1926 Wiener married Margaret Engemann, an assistant professor of modern languages at Juniata College . They had two daughters. Wiener admitted in his autobiography I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy to abusing benzadrine throughout his life without being fully aware of its dangers. Wiener died in March 1964, aged 69, in Stockholm , from

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864-723: A personal library from which the young Norbert benefited greatly. Leo also had ample ability in mathematics and tutored his son in the subject until he left home. In his autobiography, Norbert described his father as calm and patient, unless he (Norbert) failed to give a correct answer, at which his father would lose his temper. In "The Theory of Ignorance", a paper he wrote at the age of 10, he disputed "man’s presumption in declaring that his knowledge has no limits", arguing that all human knowledge "is based on an approximation", and acknowledging "the impossibility of being certain of anything." He graduated from Ayer High School in 1906 at 11 years of age, and Wiener then entered Tufts College . He

936-426: A price. The following is a list of letter series with their date ranges and prices. The first series of Ace books began in 1952 with D-01, a western in tête-bêche format: Keith Vining's Too Hot for Hell backed with Samuel W. Taylor 's The Grinning Gismo . That series continued until D-599, Patricia Libby's Winged Victory for Nurse Kerry , but the series also included several G and S serial numbers, depending on

1008-402: A sound mathematical basis. The example often given to students is that English text could be modeled as a random string of letters and spaces, where each letter of the alphabet (and the space) has an assigned probability. But Wiener dealt with analog signals, where such a simple example doesn't exist. Wiener's early work on information theory and signal processing was limited to analog signals, and

1080-454: A well-received original anthology series. Universe was initially published by Ace, although when Carr left in 1971 the series moved elsewhere. In 1965, Ace published an unauthorized American paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien , believing that the copyright had expired in the U.S. Tolkien had not wanted to publish a paperback edition, but changed his mind after

1152-493: Is credited as being one of the first to theorize that all intelligent behavior was the result of feedback mechanisms, that could possibly be simulated by machines and was an important early step towards the development of modern artificial intelligence . Wiener was born in Columbia, Missouri , the first child of Leo Wiener and Bertha Kahn, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Germany , respectively. Through his father, he

1224-480: Is perhaps from these titles that Ace Books got its name. Wyn liked Wollheim's idea but delayed for several months; meanwhile, Wollheim was applying for other jobs, including assistant editor at Pyramid Books . Pyramid mistakenly called Wyn's wife Rose for a reference, thinking Wollheim had worked for her. When Rose told her husband that Wollheim was applying for another job, Wyn made up his mind: he hired Wollheim immediately as an editor. The first book published by Ace

1296-432: Is round with four eyes, two on each side, and the top is a dome which he can retract into his barrel. His feet are also extendable/retractable. Norby has a tenor voice but can communicate through telepathy by touch. Norby is equipped with a miniature anti-gravity device allowing him to float. He also possesses the ability to travel through hyperspace , although his navigating abilities are sometimes unreliable. He also has

1368-522: The Cold War . He was a strong advocate of automation to improve the standard of living, and to end economic underdevelopment. His ideas became influential in India , whose government he advised during the 1950s. After the war, Wiener became increasingly concerned with what he believed was political interference with scientific research, and the militarization of science. His article "A Scientist Rebels" from

1440-538: The Khinchin – Kolmogorov theorem ), states that the power spectral density of a wide-sense-stationary random process is the Fourier transform of the corresponding autocorrelation function. An abstract Wiener space is a mathematical object in measure theory , used to construct a "decent", strictly positive and locally finite measure on an infinite-dimensional vector space. Wiener's original construction only applied to

1512-564: The Tauberian theorems . In 1926, Wiener's parents arranged his marriage to a German immigrant, Margaret Engemann; they had two daughters. His sister, Constance (1898–1973), married mathematician Philip Franklin . Their daughter, Janet, Wiener's niece, married mathematician Václav E. Beneš . Norbert Wiener's sister, Bertha (1902–1995), married the botanist Carroll William Dodge . Many tales, perhaps apocryphal, were told of Norbert Wiener at MIT, especially concerning his absent-mindedness. It

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1584-531: The University of Göttingen . At Göttingen he also attended three courses with Edmund Husserl "one on Kant's ethical writings, one on the principles of Ethics, and the seminary on Phenomenology." (Letter to Russell, c. June or July, 1914). During 1915–16, he taught philosophy at Harvard, then was an engineer for General Electric and wrote for the Encyclopedia Americana . Wiener was briefly

1656-407: The Wiener equation , named after Wiener, assumes the current velocity of a fluid particle fluctuates randomly. For signal processing, the Wiener filter is a filter proposed by Wiener during the 1940s and published in 1942 as a classified document. Its purpose is to reduce the amount of noise present in a signal by comparison with an estimate of the desired noiseless signal. Wiener developed

1728-495: The Wiener filter . (The now-standard practice of modeling an information source as a random process—in other words, as a variety of noise—is due to Wiener.) Initially his anti-aircraft work led him to write, with Arturo Rosenblueth and Julian Bigelow , the 1943 article 'Behavior, Purpose and Teleology', which was published in Philosophy of Science . Subsequently his anti-aircraft work led him to formulate cybernetics . After

1800-493: The Ace edition appeared, and an authorized paperback edition was subsequently published by Ballantine Books , which included on the back cover of the paperbacks a message urging readers not to buy the unauthorized edition. Ace agreed to pay royalties to Tolkien and let its still-popular edition go out of print. Wyn died in 1967, and the company grew financially overextended, failing to pay its authors reliably. Without money to pay

1872-695: The Dookoza attempts to thwart a rescue mission by Jeff and Norby, but they end up freeing the Grand Dragon and leaving the Dookoza on the planet Melodia. The fifth book, Norby and the Queen's Necklace sends Norby and Jeff to the French Revolution using the Queen's Necklace, a time travel device that also involved Marie Antoinette in a scandal. After escaping the Bastille , Norby and Jeff take

1944-524: The Drift . All were first novels by authors now regarded as major figures in the genre. Other prominent science fiction publishing figures who have worked at Ace include Tom Doherty , who left to start Tor Books , and Jim Baen , who left to work at Tor and who eventually founded Baen Books . Writers who have worked at Ace include Frederik Pohl and Ellen Kushner . In 1996, Penguin Group (USA) acquired

2016-513: The January 1947 issue of The Atlantic Monthly urged scientists to consider the ethical implications of their work. After the war, he refused to accept any government funding or to work on military projects. The way Wiener's beliefs concerning nuclear weapons and the Cold War contrasted with those of von Neumann is the major theme of the book John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener . Wiener was

2088-523: The Mentors. The small robot succeeded in locating the ship, but before he could warp it back to Jamya, it crashed in Earth's asteroid belt . The impact of the crash also rendered the Searcher immobile, until the ship was discovered many years later by a salvager and inventor named McGillicuddy. McGillicuddy was a robot maker himself, albeit his were of cruder design than the Mentor's. One of his damaged robots

2160-638: The Oldest Dragon , takes place almost entirely on the planet Jamya, which is being menaced by an attack from an intelligent cloud. The dragon in the title refers to the Dowager Dragon, mother of the Grand Dragon (the current ruler of Jamya). The tenth book, Norby and the Court Jester , is set once more on the planet Izz and brings back the villain Ing for a third appearance. The final book in

2232-611: The Putnam Berkley Group, and has retained Ace as its science fiction imprint. As of December 2012, recently published authors included Joe Haldeman , Charles Stross , Laurell K. Hamilton , Alastair Reynolds , and Jack McDevitt . Penguin merged with Random House in 2013 to form Penguin Random House , which continues to own Berkley. Ace's editorial team is also responsible for the Roc Books imprint, although

Norby - Misplaced Pages Continue

2304-471: The book it was bound with— Leslie Edgley 's The Judas Goat —is a mystery.) Another science fiction double followed later in 1953, and science fiction rapidly established itself, alongside westerns and mysteries, as an important part of Ace's business. By 1955, the company released more science fiction titles each year than in either of the other two genres, and from 1961 onward, science fiction titles outnumbered mysteries and westerns combined. Ace also published

2376-442: The breach. Patrick D. Wall speculated that after the publication of Cybernetics , Wiener asked McCulloch for some physiological facts about the brain that he could then theorize. McCulloch told him "a mixture of what was known to be true and what McCulloch thought should be". Wiener then theorized it, went to a physiology congress, and was shot down. Wiener was convinced that McCulloch had set him up. Wiener later helped develop

2448-602: The capability to travel through time via hyperspace. Norby's many features make him a target for scientists, the army, and the rogue Inventor's Guild who wish to disassemble and study him. In the first Norby book, Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot , Norby and his owner Jefferson Wells stop the villain Ing the Ingrate from taking over the Solar System. In the second book, Norby's Other Secret , Norby and Jeff travel to

2520-491: The company becoming absorbed by Berkley Books . Ace later became an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) . Editor Donald A. Wollheim was working at Avon Books in 1952, but disliked his job. While looking for other work, he tried to persuade A. A. Wyn to begin a new paperback publishing company. Wyn was already a well-established publisher of books and pulp magazines under the name A. A. Wyn's Magazine Publishers . His magazines included Ace Mystery and Ace Sports , and it

2592-619: The filter at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT to predict the position of German bombers from radar reflections. What emerged was a mathematical theory of great generality—a theory for predicting the future as best one can on the basis of incomplete information about the past. It was a statistical theory that included applications that did not, strictly speaking, predict the future, but only tried to remove noise. It made use of Wiener's earlier work on integral equations and Fourier transforms . Wiener studied polynomial chaos ,

2664-479: The first series was John T. Phillifent's Life with Lancelot , backed with William Barton 's Hunting on Kunderer , issued August 1973 (serial #48245). Although Ace resumed using the "Ace Double" name in 1974, the books were arranged conventionally rather than tête-bêche . Ace's second title was a western (also tête-bêche ): William Colt MacDonald 's Bad Man's Return , bound with J. Edward Leithead 's Bloody Hoofs . Mysteries and westerns alternated regularly for

2736-551: The first series, but the G prefix acquired its own series starting with G-501. Hence the eight earlier G-series titles can be considered part of a different series to the G-series proper. All later series after the first kept independent numbering systems, starting at 1 or 101. The tête-bêche format proved attractive to book collectors, and some rare titles in mint condition command prices over $ 1,000. Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964)

2808-493: The first thirty titles, with a few books not in either genre, such as P. G. Wodehouse 's Quick Service , bound with his The Code of the Woosters . In 1953, A. E. van Vogt 's The World of Null-A , bound with his The Universe Maker , appeared; this was Ace's first foray into science fiction. (Earlier in 1953, Ace had released Theodore S. Drachman 's Cry Plague! , with a plot that could be regarded as science fiction, but

2880-655: The influence of either company. Ace published, during this period, early work by Philip K. Dick , Gordon R. Dickson , Samuel R. Delany , Ursula K. Le Guin , and Roger Zelazny . In 1964, science fiction author Terry Carr joined the company, and in 1967, he initiated the Ace Science Fiction Specials line, which published critically acclaimed original novels by such authors as R. A. Lafferty , Joanna Russ and Ursula K. Le Guin . Carr and Wollheim also co-edited an annual Year's Best Science Fiction anthology series; and Carr also edited Universe ,

2952-491: The only Izzian hyperspace ship to Melodia. Norby, Jeff, Fargo, Yobo, and Albany go to the planet on a rescue mission only to be imprisoned by the native insect life. The fourth book, Norby and the Invaders , pits Norby and Jeff against a race of balloon-shaped aliens nicknamed the Invaders. The Invaders kidnap the Grand Dragon at the novel's outset and place her in an underwater zoo on their homeworld. An intelligent vine named

Norby - Misplaced Pages Continue

3024-440: The originator of cybernetics , the science of communication as it relates to living things and machines, with implications for engineering , systems control , computer science , biology , neuroscience , philosophy , and the organization of society . His work heavily influenced computer pioneer John von Neumann , information theorist Claude Shannon , anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson , and others. Wiener

3096-474: The planet Jamya to restore the mental health of Norby's creator, Mentor First. Along the way they learn about the Others, a race that bio-engineered the intelligent Jamyn dragons. The third book, Norby and the Lost Princess, introduces the planet Izz and its displaced human settlers. While Norby and company prepare for a singing contest, they go to Izz where they find out that Princess Rinda has taken

3168-424: The price. The D and S did not indicate "Double" (i.e., tête-bêche ) or "Single"; there are D-series titles that are not tête-bêche , although none of the tête-bêche titles have an S serial number. Towards the end of this initial series, the F series began (at a new price), and thereafter there were always several different letter series in publication simultaneously. The D and S prefixes did not appear again after

3240-551: The real disaster occurred. The Norby Chronicles were made into serialization comics for the Scouting magazine Boys' Life in the 1990s. The comics were adapted from the first and second books in the series. The first was "Norby the Mixed-Up Robot" running for 18 chapters, from January 1990, to July 1991. The second series "Norby's Other Secret" ran from January 1993, to December 1995 and was presented in 32 chapters. The first chapter of each series being two full pages in length while

3312-535: The remainder of his career. For many years his photograph was prominently displayed in the Infinite Corridor and often used in giving directions, but by 2017 it had been removed. In 1926, Wiener returned to Europe as a Guggenheim scholar . He spent most of his time at Göttingen and with Hardy at Cambridge, working on Brownian motion , the Fourier integral , Dirichlet's problem , harmonic analysis, and

3384-645: The run-up to World War II (1939–45) Wiener became a member of the China Aid Society and the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars. He was interested in placing scholars such as Yuk-Wing Lee and Antoni Zygmund who had lost their positions. During World War II , his work on the automatic aiming and firing of anti-aircraft guns caused Wiener to investigate information theory independently of Claude Shannon and to invent

3456-413: The science fiction imprint of its parent company. Carr returned to Ace Books in 1984 as a freelance editor, launching a new series of Ace Specials devoted entirely to first novels. This series was even more successful than the first: it included, in 1984 alone, William Gibson 's Neuromancer , Kim Stanley Robinson 's The Wild Shore , Lucius Shepard 's Green Eyes , and Michael Swanwick 's In

3528-621: The series, Norby and the Terrified Taxi , centers around Lizzie, an intelligent taxi first introduced in Norby Down to Earth . They must find and stop Garc the Great who wants to change history. It has been speculated that Norby was named by his authors after Norbert Wiener , the "Father of Cybernetics". Note that in "Norby and the Lost Princess", King Fizzwell talks about a Spacecraft Challenger Disaster , more than one year before

3600-477: The signing bonus, Wollheim was unwilling to send signed contracts to authors. On at least one occasion, a book without a valid contract went to the printer, and Wollheim later found out that the author, who was owed $ 3,000 by Ace, was reduced to picking fruit for a living. Both Wollheim and Carr left Ace in 1971. Wollheim had made plans to launch a separate paperback house, and in cooperation with New American Library , he proceeded to set up DAW Books . Carr became

3672-580: The space of real-valued continuous paths on the unit interval, known as classical Wiener space . Leonard Gross provided the generalization to the case of a general separable Banach space . The notion of a Banach space itself was discovered independently by both Wiener and Stefan Banach at around the same time. His work with Mary Brazier is referred to in Avis DeVoto 's As Always, Julia . A flagship named after him appears briefly in Citizen of

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3744-438: The stock-market). Wiener's tauberian theorem , a 1932 result of Wiener, developed Tauberian theorems in summability theory , on the face of it a chapter of real analysis , by showing that most of the known results could be encapsulated in a principle taken from harmonic analysis . In its present formulation, the theorem of Wiener does not have any obvious association with Tauberian theorems, which deal with infinite series ;

3816-440: The subsequent chapters were in one page. Ace Books Ace Books is a publisher of science fiction (SF) and fantasy books founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn . It began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns , and soon branched out into other genres, publishing its first science fiction title in 1953. This was successful, and science fiction titles outnumbered both mysteries and westerns within

3888-497: The theories of cybernetics, robotics , computer control, and automation . He discussed the modeling of neurons with John von Neumann , and in a letter from November 1946 von Neumann presented his thoughts in advance of a meeting with Wiener. Wiener always shared his theories and findings with other researchers, and credited the contributions of others. These included Soviet researchers and their findings. Wiener's acquaintance with them caused him to be regarded with suspicion during

3960-459: The theory of relations does not require any axioms or primitive notions distinct from those of set theory. In 1921, Kazimierz Kuratowski proposed a simplification of Wiener's definition of ordered pairs, and that simplification has been in common use ever since. It is (x, y) = {{x}, {x, y}}. In 1914, Wiener traveled to Europe, to be taught by Bertrand Russell and G. H. Hardy at Cambridge University , and by David Hilbert and Edmund Landau at

4032-566: The title The Rebellious Stars , and cuts were made without Asimov's approval. Similarly John Brunner repudiated the text of his novel Castaway's World because of unauthorized cuts to the text. Some important titles in the early D-series novels are D-15, which features William S. Burroughs 's first novel, Junkie (written under the pseudonym "William Lee"), and many novels by Philip K. Dick , Robert Bloch , Harlan Ellison , Harry Whittington , and Louis L'Amour , including those written under his pseudonym "Jim Mayo". The last Ace Double in

4104-409: The translation from results formulated for integrals, or using the language of functional analysis and Banach algebras , is however a relatively routine process. The Paley–Wiener theorem relates growth properties of entire functions on C and Fourier transformation of Schwartz distributions of compact support. The Wiener–Khinchin theorem , (also known as the Wiener – Khintchine theorem and

4176-500: The two imprints maintain a separate identity. The following people have worked at Ace Books in various editorial roles. The list is sorted in order of the date they started working at Ace, where known. It includes editors who are notable for some reason, as well as the most recent editors at the imprint. Until the late 1980s, Ace titles had two main types of serial numbers: letter series, such as "D-31" and "H-77", and numeric, such as "10293" and "15697". The letters were used to indicate

4248-501: The universe. He instead opens a portal to another reality where the tree-like Master Cult (MC) rule, and accidentally bring them to the Solar System where they proceed to conquer Earth. In the seventh book, Norby Down to Earth , Norby learns about his origins as well as the fate of the spacer McGillicuddy, who converted him to his current form. The eighth book, Norby and Yobo's Great Adventure , finds Norby and Jeff stranded in ancient Africa with Admiral Yobo. The ninth book, Norby and

4320-600: The war drawing closer, Wiener attended a training camp for potential military officers but failed to earn a commission. One year later Wiener again tried to join the military, but the government again rejected him due to his poor eyesight. In the summer of 1918, Oswald Veblen invited Wiener to work on ballistics at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Living and working with other mathematicians strengthened his interest in mathematics. However, Wiener

4392-669: The war, his fame helped MIT to recruit a research team in cognitive science , composed of researchers in neuropsychology and the mathematics and biophysics of the nervous system, including Warren Sturgis McCulloch and Walter Pitts . These men later made pioneering contributions to computer science and artificial intelligence . Soon after the group was formed, Wiener suddenly ended all contact with its members, mystifying his colleagues. This emotionally traumatized Pitts, and led to his career decline. In their biography of Wiener, Conway and Siegelman suggest that Wiener's wife Margaret, who detested McCulloch's bohemian lifestyle, engineered

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4464-406: Was a pair of mysteries bound tête-bêche : Keith Vining's Too Hot for Hell , backed with Samuel W. Taylor 's The Grinning Gismo , priced at 35 cents , with serial number D-01. A tête-bêche book has the two titles bound upside-down with respect to each other, so that there are two front covers and the two texts meet in the middle. This format is generally regarded as an innovation of Ace's; it

4536-481: Was an American computer scientist , mathematician and philosopher . He became a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ). A child prodigy , Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering , electronic communication , and control systems . Wiener is considered

4608-498: Was awarded a BA in mathematics in 1909 at the age of 14, whereupon he began graduate studies of zoology at Harvard . In 1910 he transferred to Cornell to study philosophy. He graduated in 1911 at 17 years of age. The next year he returned to Harvard, while still continuing his philosophical studies. Back at Harvard, Wiener became influenced by Edward Vermilye Huntington , whose mathematical interests ranged from axiomatic foundations to engineering problems. Harvard awarded Wiener

4680-468: Was created from a tubby barrel that originally contained Norb's Nails, later becoming the basis for Norby's name. McGillicuddy used the Searcher's parts to repair his damaged robot. Norby eventually fell into the possession of a used-robot shop where he was sold to Jefferson Wells, a space cadet looking for a teaching robot. Norby's body reflects his outer origins as a barrel, while his arms are retractable and have double-sided palms (and two thumbs). His head

4752-528: Was discharged from the military in February 1919. Wiener was unable to secure a permanent position at Harvard, a situation he attributed largely to anti-Semitism at the university and in particular the antipathy of Harvard mathematician G. D. Birkhoff . He was also rejected for a position at the University of Melbourne . At W. F. Osgood's suggestion, Wiener was hired as an instructor of mathematics at MIT , where, after his promotion to professor, he spent

4824-511: Was largely forgotten with the development of the digital theory. Wiener is one of the key originators of cybernetics , a formalization of the notion of feedback , with many implications for engineering , systems control , computer science , biology , philosophy , and the organization of society . His work with cybernetics influenced Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead , and through them, anthropology , sociology , and education . A simple mathematical representation of Brownian motion ,

4896-404: Was not, but Ace published hundreds of titles bound this way over the next twenty-one years. Books by established authors were often bound with those by lesser-known writers. Ace was "notorious for cutting text", in the words of bibliographer James Corrick: even some novels labeled "Complete and Unabridged" were cut. Isaac Asimov's The Stars Like Dust was one such: it was reprinted by Ace under

4968-520: Was one of the leading science fiction publishers for its first ten years of operation. The death of owner A. A. Wyn in 1967 set the stage for a later decline in the publisher's fortunes. Two leading editors, Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr , left in 1971, and in 1972 Ace was sold to Grosset & Dunlap . Despite financial troubles, there were further successes, particularly with the third Ace Science Fiction Specials series, for which Carr came back as editor. Further mergers and acquisitions resulted in

5040-418: Was related to Maimonides , the famous rabbi , philosopher and physician from Al Andalus , as well as to Akiva Eger , chief rabbi of Posen from 1815 to 1837. Leo had educated Norbert at home until 1903, employing teaching methods of his own invention, except for a brief interlude when Norbert was seven years of age. Earning his living teaching German and Slavic languages, Leo read widely and accumulated

5112-446: Was said that he returned home once to find his house empty. He inquired of a neighborhood girl the reason, and she said that the family had moved elsewhere that day. He thanked her for the information and she replied, "It's ok, Daddy, Mommy sent me to get you". Asked about the story, Wiener's daughter reportedly asserted that "he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened…" In

5184-480: Was still eager to serve in uniform and decided to make one more attempt to enlist, this time as a common soldier. Wiener wrote in a letter to his parents, "I should consider myself a pretty cheap kind of a swine if I were willing to be an officer but unwilling to be a soldier." This time the army accepted Wiener into its ranks and assigned him, by coincidence, to a unit stationed at Aberdeen, Maryland. World War I ended just days after Wiener's return to Aberdeen and Wiener

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