John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death (review)

143 reviews Steve J. Heims, John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies ofLife and Death (Cambridge, Mass. and London: the MIT Press, 1980) pp. 547. $19.95. Mathematics is not a moral science. The gods give out the genes of genius to good men and bad men alike and are no respecters of persons or nations or poUtics. Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) was a scrupulous man; his head was full of home-grown moral poUce. John von Neumann (1903-1975) sought to please the powerful. Both were unquestionably great mathematicians. There is a story which illustrates very clearly the way in which the technologists of death can rationalize their work on weapons of annihilation. When Teller was in California awaiting the results of a test of the H-bomb, the srismograph recorded the explosion. He sent a telegram to his colleagues at Los Alamos three words long: "It's a boy." This appalling appropriation of the metaphor of birth, the language of life itsdf, for the act of inventing the most sophisticated weapons of death and destruction, is an indication of the scope of the problems dealt with in this book. A priesthood of scientists accountable only to politicians and generals is in a position to appropriate language and cultural values for its own purpose. Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann were the foremost American mathematical analysts of the first half of this century. Each obtained fundamental results in established fields and each initiated new areas of research and applications. Von Neumann's major contributions were in the mathematical foundations of quantum physics, in game theory and in the theory ofautomata well as in many areas of pure mathematics. He played a major role in the devdopment ofcomputers and the atomic bomb. His work is of great importance in economics and in operations research. Wiener's major contributions were in the development of the mathematical theory of Brownian motion, in the analysis of random processes in nature and in establishing the discipline of cybernetics. His work provided a probabilistic approach to problems of physics, formed the foundation of the theory of signal transmission in the presence of noise and provided a methodology for the analysis of systems comprised of both men and machines. Applications of Wiener's work range from meteorology to the development of sophistocated prosthetic devices for the handicapped. Both men worked on military problems during World War II, von Neumann on the atomic bomb and Wiener on automatic tracking and firing of anti-aircraft guns. At the war's end von Neumann continued to work on nuclear weapons, advocated a preemptive strike on the Soviet Union, pushed the development of the hydrogen bomb and argued for continued testing of nuclear weapons. He was a member of the Atomic Energy Commission at his death in 1957. When the war ended Wiener declared that scientists should return to the university. He developed the field of cybernetics and wrote about the "human use of human brings". He tried to reach non-specialists with arguments about the need to control technological developments and addressed scientists on thdr sodai responsibility. John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener is written in the Victorian tradition of biography as moral exemplum. There is the clash between a hero and an anti-hero, two Faust-figures fighting for the center of the stage, and an amibitous attempt to grapple with the most serious and compelling problems of our age as they are embodied in the Uves and work of two sdentific geniuses. For the non-specialist reader there is the burden of struggling with the author's infelirities of style. Propaganda, scholarly and serious as it is, for the cause of social responsibility in sdence, ought to be better written. Von Neumann was a superman in search of a superpower. Wiener said "Non serviam" almost by instinct and tormented himself with guilt for publishing work which might be used to make weapons. The "great man" approach to history becomes in Hdms' hands a vehicle for a critique of post-war research and the institutions which supported it, and so he studies great minds in the milieu of big money and the big military...