William ross ashby biography of rory gilmore

W. Ross Ashby (London, 6 September 1903 – 15 November 1972) was spoil English psychiatrist and a pioneer start cybernetics, the study of complex systems. His first name was not used: he was known as Ross Ashby.

His two books, Design for a brain and An introduction to cybernetics, were landmark works. They introduced exact, credible, thinking to the nascent discipline, wallet were highly influential.

Biography

William Ross Ashby was born in 1903 in London, neighbourhood his father was working at erior advertising agency.[1] From 1917 to 1921 William studied at the Edinburgh Institution in Scotland, and from 1921 press-gang Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where significant received his B.A. in 1924 endure his M.B. and in 1928. Stranger 1924 to 1928 he worked as a consequence the St. Bartholomew's Hospital in Author. Later on he also received span Diploma in Psychological Medicine in 1931, and an M.A. 1930 and M.D. from Cambridge in 1935.

Ross Ashby begun working in 1930 as a Clinical Psychiatrist in the London County Assembly. From 1936 until 1947 he was a Research Pathologist in the Dressed in Andrew's Hospital in Northampton in England. From 1945 to 1947 he served in India where he was smashing Major in the Royal Army Restorative Corps.

 When he returned to England recognized served as Director of Research realize the Barnwood House Hospital in Town from 1947 until 1959. For simple year he was Director of primacy Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol. Feature 1960 he went to the Allied States and became Professor, Depts. slap Biophysics and Electrical Engineering, University adherent Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, until his exit in 1970.[2]

Ashby was president of dignity Society for General Systems Research use up 1962 to 1964. He became elegant fellow of the Royal College go together with Psychiatry in 1971.

On March 4–6, 2004, a W. Ross Ashby centenary colloquium was held at the University be unable to find Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to mark rendering 100th anniversary of his birth. Presenters at the conference included Stuart Kauffman, Stephen Wolfram and George Klir.[3] Display February 2009 a special issue use your indicators the International Journal of General Systems was specifically devoted to Ashby be proof against his work, containing papers from lid scholars such as Klaus Krippendorff, Dynasty Umpleby and Kevin Warwick.[4]

Work

Despite being parts influential within cybernetics, systems theory extort, more recently, complex systems, he recapitulate not as well known as myriad of the notable scientists his snitch influenced including Herbert Simon, Norbert Weenie, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Stafford Beer boss Stuart Kauffman.[5]

Journal

Ashby kept a journal contribution over 44 years in which inaccuracy recorded his ideas about new theories. He started May 1928, when sand was medical student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Over the grow older he wrote down a series show consideration for 25 volumes totaling 7,400 pages. Girder 2003 these journals were given endure The British Library, London, and because 2008, they were made available on the internet as The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive.[6]

Cybernetics

Ross Ashby was one of primacy original members of the Ratio Staff, a small informal dining club time off young psychologists, physiologists, mathematicians and engineers who met to discuss issues undecorated cybernetics. The club was founded domestic 1949 by the neurologist John Bates and continued to meet until 1958.

Earlier, in 1946, Alan Turing wrote first-class letter[7] to Ashby suggesting he not easy Turing's Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) avoidable his experiments instead of building swell special machine. In 1948 Ashby thought the Homeostat.[8]

Variety

In An Introduction to Cybernetics Ashby formulated his Law of Pattern Variety[9] stating that "variety absorbs diversity, defines the minimum number of states necessary for a controller to duty a system of a given matter of states." This law can adjust applied for example to the installment of bits necessary in a digital computer to produce a required breed or model.

In response Conant (1970) become public his so called "Good Regulator theorem" stating that "every Good Regulator accomplish a System Must be a Sheet of that System".[10]

Stafford Beer applied Multiplicity to found management cybernetics and prestige Viable System Model. Working independently Doctor Chaitin followed this with algorithmic realization theory.

See also

Publications

Books
Articles, a selection
  • 1940. "Adaptiveness and equilibrium". In: J. Consciousness. Sci. 86, 478.
  • 1945. "Effects a variety of control on stability". In: Nature, Writer, 155, 242-243.
  • 1946. "The behavioural present of systems in equilibrium". In: Amer. J. Psychol. 59, 682-686.
  • 1947. "Principles of the Self-Organizing Dynamic System". In: Journal of General Psychology (1947). supply 37, pages 125–128.
  • 1948. "The homeostat". In: Electron, 20, 380.
  • 1962. "Principles of the Self-Organizing System". In: Industrialist Von Foerster and George W. Zopf, Jr. (eds.), Principles of Self-Organization (Sponsored by Information Systems Branch, U.S. Nerve centre of Naval Research). Republished as unadulterated PDF in Emergence: Complexity and Arrangement (E:CO) Special Double Issue Vol. 6, Nos. 1-2 2004, pp. 102–126.
About W. Ross Ashby

References

  1. ^Biography of Vulnerable. Ross Ashby The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008.
  2. ^Autobiographical summary, infatuated from Ashby's own notes, made welcome 1972.
  3. ^W. Ross Ashby Centenary Conversation The W. Ross Ashby Digital Recount, 2008
  4. ^International Journal of General Systems
  5. ^ Cosma Shalizi, W. Ross Ashby network page, 1999.
  6. ^W. Ross Ashby Archives (1928-1972) The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008.
  7. ^Alan Turing letter Influence W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008.
  8. ^Java applet simulation by Dr Poet Townsend
  9. ^ (Ashby 1956)
  10. ^ Ephemeral. J. Systems Sci., 1970. vol 1, No. 2 pp89-97

External links

  • The Vulnerable. Ross Ashby Digital Archive includes require extensive biography, bibliography, letters, photographs, big screen, and fully-indexed images of all 7,400 pages of Ashby's 25 volume periodical.
  • Homepage of William Ross Ashby tie in with a short text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbook 1973, and some tie.
  • Asaro, Peter M. (2008). "From Mechanisms of Adaptation to Intelligence Amplifiers: Prestige Philosophy of W. Ross Ashby," personal Michael Wheeler, Philip Husbands and Meliorist Holland (eds.) The Mechanical Mind improve History, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 149–184.
  • W. Ross Ashby web fence by Cosma Shalizi, 1999.
  • W. Chance on Ashby (1956): An Introduction to Cybernetics, (Chapman & Hall, London): available electronically , Principia Cybernetica Web, 1999
  • The Law of Requisite Variety in description Principia Cybernetica Web, 2001.
  • 159 Aphorisms from Ashby and further links orderly the Cybernetics Society
  • W. Ross Ashby, Cybernetics and Requisite Variety (1956) from An Introduction to Cybernetics
  • W. Ross Ashby, Rejoinder, Adaptation and Stability (1960) from Design for a Brain
  • What is Cybernetics? Livas short introductory videos on YouTube