Monday, 13 May 2013

Lee de Forest, Athens Greece 1956

Lee de Forest, Athens Greece 1956
a small piece of history

Dr Lee de Forest visited Athens Greece in October 1956 as a special guest of Costas Karayannis owner of "Radio Karayannis" one of the first Greek firms specialized in electronics. Lee de Forest at 85 was already a well known personality in the field of electronics as the inventor of "Audion" the first triode electron tube. An event was organized during this visit at  hotel Grande Bretagne attended by many leaders from  the radio and electronics industries as well as academics.

(Oct 1956, from left to right Le De Forest, Costas Karayannis, Panagiotis Politis)
A four page report (in Greek) about the life of the distinguished guest was prepared by "Radio Karayannis" and distributed among the guests of this rare event. A scanned copy of this report is available here (*).  

(*) Once more I would like to express my gratitude to Mr Takis Politis for this historical document.

Wednesday, 31 January 2007

ASHBY W. Ross, An Introduction to CYBERNETICS.

Although Nobert Wiener dreamed of Cybernetics as the common denominator language among all sciences, little have been achieved towards this direction over the last sixty years. Apparently the mathematics involved and the technicality of the subject made it a no man's land for anyone without a background in engineering or maths despite the efforts of numerous teachers and educators.
An excellent example of an introductory text on the subject is : ASHBY, W. Ross An Introduction to CYBERNETICS. Methuen & Co Ltd, London ; 1964. (*)
A book that requires only a solid knowledge of elementary mathematics and the dedication of the reader in order to understand not only the basis of this language, but also its advanced applications on areas as diverse as biology, economy, or even a game of chess.

(*) We wish to thank Mr Takis Politis of Radionautics Hellas for supplying us with this book from his library.


 

WIENER N., Cybernetics.

Cybernetics : "...the science of control and communication, in the animal and the machine..." (WIENER, N. Cybernetics. John Wiley & Sons, New York ; 1948)