Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine
New York: John Wiley & Sons 1948. First American Edition. [8], [7]-194 pages. 8vo. Publisher's red cloth with black embossed box with white "CYBERNETICS" on front panel and similar design on the spine panel with author and publisher in blank print. Dust jacket with 1 1/2 inch closed tear to front panel upper left, small nick to foreedge, and ragged four inch tear to rear dust jacket flap. The usual spine panel browning, and a few small edge tears. The first edition dust jacket with incorrect page count on rear panel (later dust jackets had the same price, corrected page count on rear, but introduced a typographical error elsewhere). Bright and clean internally with just a touch of browning. Fine / Good. Cloth. [26680]
"Cybernetics was the first conventionally published book, rather than a technical report, to include a serious discussion of electronic digital computing." (Origins of Cyberspace 991 refering to the French edition which preceded the American by a few months). This book introduced the term cybernetics and clarified the questions raised by the rapid development of computing technology in the mid twentieth century. Cybernetics "has contributed to popularizing a way of thinking in communication theory terms, such as feedback, information, control, input, output, stability, homeostasis, prediction, and filtering." DSB (1981), v.14, p.347.
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