Invention: The Care and Feeding of Ideas
Introduced by science historian Steve Heims, this manuscript--written by a noted mathematician in the 1950s, with the latest revision dated June 1954--was discovered among Wiener's papers in the Institute Archives of the MIT Libraries. It was originally commissioned by Doubleday, but Wiener returned their $500 advance and subsequently turned his attention to other works. Although Invention has interesting sections, it rambles in parts and has a preachy tone in others. The first few chapters on the history of technology are interesting, primarily for the breadth of the author's understanding, but his views of research styles and his criticism of "big science" seem outdated and unduly negative. This book will appeal to a limited audience.- Hilary D. Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Livermore, Cal.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.