Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener The Father of Cybernetics (Conway, F. and Siegelman, J.; 2004) [Book Review]

This biography of Norbert Wiener spends less time looking at his enormous contributions to mathematics and far more time exploring his inner personal workings. The authors set out to establish that Wiener's importance and contributions to science and society have been forgotten, and that the man was, in essence, crazy. Although he exhibited erratic behavior and a chaotic temperament, Wiener was a fine scholar, a dedicated mathematician, an inspiring teacher, a tireless seeker of the truth, and in most respects a fine man. The author do provide insight into Wiener's (nonprofessional) life. They give a keen sense of what he was like as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, and as a senior scholar. They also paint him as the father of information theory and the creator of cybernetics and talk about the feud with his colleagues in this area. Overall, the book portrays a side of Wiener that not everyone saw.