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Cybernetics is the study of control and communication in physical, biological and social systems. 

Cybernetics covers any and all systems that use feedback. It is thus closely related to the study of electronic networks, computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. These relationships explain the contemporary tendency to associate cybernetics with information technology in general, and with the [[Internet]] in particular.

==Origin of the term Cybernetics==
The term cybernetics stems from the Greek "kybernetes" meaning rudder or pilot. The Latin cognate "gubernator" is the origin of the English word governor. In the late 1700s James Watt equipped his steam engine with a centripetal feedback valve for controlling the speed, which he called a "governor."

In 1947 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener Norbert Wiener] chose the term "cybernetics" to denote the general study of feedback mechanisms in mechanical, biological, and electronic systems. Wiener called systems using feedback "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology teleological]," meaning that such systems aim towards specific goals, and thus require feedback to correct their actions their order to achieve their goals.

==Key Steps in the Development of Cybernetics==
Cybernetics emerged as an interdisciplinary discipline connecting such fields as electrical network theory, evolutionary biology, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, neuroscience and information theory.

Key steps in the development of the science of cybernetics were:
*Harold S. Black working in 1927 at Bell Telephone Laboratories on the use of negative feedback to control amplifiers launched the development of control systems in electronics
*Biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy gave at the University of Chicago in 1938 his first lecture about General System Theory as a methodology that is valid for all sciences 
*John von Neumann in the early 1940's developed thought-experiments about cellular automata, leading to the concept of self replication, which cybernetics later adopted as a core concept
*Norbert Wiener during the Second World War studied the use of negative feedback in electronic circuits to control anti-aircraft gun mounts
*Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow published in 1943 the paper "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology," concerning communication within mechanical, biological, and electronic systems
*Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts published in 1943 the paper "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity," which considered the brain as a system
*Ralph Beebe Blackman, Hendrik Wade Bode, and Claude Shannon published in 1945 an essay titled "Data Smoothing and Prediction in Fire-Control Systems," which formulated the problem of fire control in terms of signal processing, thus heralding the coming of information theory
*The inaugural session of the interdisciplinary Macy Conferences, entitled "Feedback Mechanisms and Circular Causal Systems in Biological and Social Systems" was held in 1946
*Norbert Wiener published in 1948 the book "Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine"

Cybernetics, which began as the study of communication and control in machines and living organisms, was soon applied to the study of social organizations. Norbert Wiener discussed the social implications of cybernetics in The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society, published in 1950. Jay Forrester, who had worked on electronic control systems at the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory during WWII, went on to apply systems ideas to social organizations at the MIT Sloan School of Management. One goal was to apply knowledge about systems in general to the management of business organisations to make them more efficient and effective.

==See Also==
*[[Cyberspace]]
*[[Cybernaut]]

==External Links==
*Wikipedia article about cybernetics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

[[Category:Cyberculture]]