cybernetics
cybernetics [Gr.,=steersman], term coined by American mathematician Norbert Wiener to refer to the general analysis of control systems and communication systems in living organisms and machines. In cybernetics, analogies are drawn between the functioning of the brain and nervous system and the computer and other electronic systems. The science overlaps the fields of neurophysiology, information theory , computing machinery, and automation . See servomechanism .
See N. Wiener, Cybernetics (rev. ed. 1961) and The Human Use of Human Beings (1967) F. H. Fuchs, The Brain as a Computer (1973).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Computers and Computing
Browse by Subject
- Earth and the Environment +-
- History +-
- Literature and the Arts +-
- Medicine +-
- People +-
- Philosophy and Religion +-
- Places +-
- Africa
- Asia
- Australia and Oceania
- Britain, Ireland, France, and the Low Countries
- Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Nations
- Germany, Scandinavia, and Central Europe
- Latin America and the Caribbean
- Oceans, Continents, and Polar Regions
- Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and the Balkans
- United States, Canada, and Greenland
- Plants and Animals +-
- Science and Technology +-
- Social Sciences and the Law +-
- Sports and Everyday Life +-