Wiener Crater Honors American Mathematician Norbert Wiener

Summary: The lunar far side’s Wiener Crater honors American mathematician Norbert Wiener, whose contributions include extensively theorizing cybernetics.

Detail of oblique, westward view, obtained in 1967 by Lunar 5 mission, shows lunar far side's Wiener Crater; NASA ID 5124: James Stuby (Jstuby), Public Domain (CC0 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons

The lunar far side’s Wiener Crater honors American mathematician Norbert Wiener, who is credited with extensively theorizing cybernetics as a transdisciplinary study of communication and control in interrelationships among animals, humans and machines.

Wiener Crater is a lunar impact crater in the far side’s northwestern quadrant. The crater’s interior floor hosts a central peak structure comprising a cluster of small ridges. Small craterlets pock the interior floor.

Wiener Crater is centered at 40.9 degrees north latitude, 146.51 degrees east longitude, according to the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. The northern hemisphere crater registers northernmost and southernmost latitudes of 42.77 degrees north and 39.03 degrees north, respectively. The middle latitude crater records easternmost and westernmost longitudes of 148.99 degrees east and 144.04 degrees east, respectively. Wiener Crater’s diameter measures 113.39 kilometers.

Wiener Crater parents four satellites. Three satellites (F, K, Q) touch their parent. Wiener H associates with Wiener K.

Pawsey Crater is Wiener Crater’s nearest named, non-Wiener Crater system neighbor. The worn crater resides as Wiener Crater’s north-northwestern neighbor and buddies with its neighbor’s northern outer ramparts.

Pawsey is centered at 44.24 degrees south latitude, 145.29 degrees east longitude. It obtains northernmost and southernmost latitudes at 45.23 degrees north and 43.25 degrees north, respectively. Its easternmost and westernmost longitudes occur at 146.67 degrees east and 143.91 degrees east, respectively. Pawsey Crater has a diameter of 59.98 kilometers.

The Wiener Crater system honors American mathematician Norbert Wiener (Nov. 26, 1894-March 18, 1964). The International Astronomical Union approved Wiener as the primary crater’s official name in 1970 during the organization’s XIVth (14th) General Assembly, held Friday, Aug. 14, to Thursday, Aug. 20, in Brighton, United Kingdom. Prior to its official naming, Wiener was designated as Crater 56. The system’s three satellites received their official designations in 2006.

In his biography of Norbert Wiener, published in the 1992 issue of the National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, American mathematician and quantum mechanics theorist Irving Ezra Segal (Sept. 13, 1918-Aug. 30, 1998) recognized Wiener as one of the 20th century’s “most original mathematicians and influential scientists” (page 389). Segal acknowledged the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor’s unified approach, in which Wiener found applications for his mathematical investigations in other fields, such as biology and engineering.

Wiener’s formulation of cybernetics represented the pure and applied mathematical theorist’s ultimate synthesis of a multiplicity of disciplines, including biology, computer science, engineering, mathematics, neuroscience, philosophy, physiology, psychology and sociology. He introduced cybernetics as a neologism (Ancient Greek: νέος, néos, “new” + λόγος, lógos, “word”) in Cybernetics; Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, which he published via the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press in 1948.

In an article in the November 1948 issue of Scientific American, Wiener briefly explained the new field introduced in his 1948 publication. He derived his new English word from the Greek word for “steersman” (κῠβερνήτης, kubernḗtēs).

Wiener also noted the corruption of the Greek word into Latin as gubernator, translated into English as helmsman, pilot, leader or governor. He explained the lengthy use of governor as the designation for certain velocity control mechanisms and specifically referenced the “brilliant study,” entitled On Governors, published in 1868 by Scottish mathematical physicist James Clerk Maxwell (June 13, 1831-Nov. 5, 1879).

Wiener described the new field of cybernetics as a combination of the human context’s thinking with engineering’s control and communication. He identified the new field aims as discerning the functional commonalities in the human nervous system and automatic machines and theorizing, in entirety, control and communications in living organisms and machines.

Wiener traced the roots of his involvement in the new field to a collaboration during World War II (Sept 1, 1939-Sept. 2, 1945) with American computer pioneer Julian Himely Bigelow (March 19, 1913-Feb. 17, 2003) and Mexican physician Arturo Rosenblueth Stearns (Dec. 2, 1900-Sept. 20, 1970). The trio realized the importance of feedback in voluntary activities while theorizing a prediction outcome for the future position of a tracked airplane via a fire-control apparatus for anti-aircraft artillery. Their analyses revealed the criticality of applying the feedback principle to the gun’s and plane’s human operators as well as to the apparatus in order to achieve the problem’s solution.

The takeaways for Wiener Crater, which honors American mathematician Norbert Wiener, are that the impact crater occupies the lunar far side’s northwestern quadrant; that Wiener Crater parents four satellites; and that the lunar crater’s namesake is credited with extensively theorizing cybernetics as the transdisciplinary study of communication and control in living organisms and machines.

Detail of Shaded Relief and Color-Coded Topography Map shows Wiener Crater on the moon’s far side: U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Detail of oblique, westward view, obtained in 1967 by Lunar 5 mission, shows lunar far side's Wiener Crater; NASA ID 5124: James Stuby (Jstuby), Public Domain (CC0 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richardson_crater_AS14-71-9852.jpg

Detail of Shaded Relief and Color-Coded Topography Map shows Wiener Crater on the moon’s far side: U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/moon_farside.pdf

For further information:

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