"It is my thesis that the physical functioning of the living individual and the operation of some of the newer communication machines are precisely parallel in their analogous attempts to control entropy through feedback. Both of them have sensory receptors as one stage of their cycle of operation: that is, in both of them there exists a special apparatus for collecting information from the outer world at low energy levels, and for making it available in the operation of the individual or of the machine. In both cases these external messages are not taken neat, but through the internal transforming powers of the apparatus, whether it be alive or dead. The information is then turned into a new form available for the further stages of performance. In both the animal and the machine this performance is made to be effective on the outer world. In both of them, their performed action on the outer world, and not merely their intended action, is reported back to the central regulatory apparatus." (Norbert Wiener, "The Human Use of Human Beings", 1950)
"To seek not for end but for antecedents is the way of the physicist, who finds causes" in what he has learned to recognise as fundamental properties, or inseparable concomitants, or unchanging laws, of matter and of energy." (Sir D’Arcy W Thompson, "On Growth and Form", 1951)
"The 'cybernetics' of Wiener […] is the science of organization of mechanical and electrical components for stability and purposeful actions. A distinguishing feature of this new science is the total absence of considerations of energy, heat, and efficiency, which are so important in other natural sciences. In fact, the primary concern of cybernetics is on the qualitative aspects of the interrelations among the various components of a system and the synthetic behavior of the complete mechanism." (Qian Xuesen, "Engineering Cybernetics", 1954)
"The 'cybernetics' of Wiener […] is the science of organization of mechanical and electrical components for stability and purposeful actions. A distinguishing feature of this new science is the total absence of considerations of energy, heat, and efficiency, which are so important in other natural sciences. In fact, the primary concern of cybernetics is on the qualitative aspects of the interrelations among the various components of a system and the synthetic behavior of the complete mechanism." (Qian Xuesen, "Engineering Cybernetics", 1954)
"A variety of natural phenomena exhibit what is called the minimum principle. The principle is displayed where the amount of energy expended in performing a given action is the least required for its execution, where the path of a particle or wave in moving from one point to another is the shortest possible, where a motion is completed in the shortest possible time, and so on." (James R Newman, "The World of Mathematics" Vol. II, 1956)
"Cybernetics might, in fact, be defined as the study of systems that are open to energy but closed to information and control-systems that are 'information-tight'." (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
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