Milton D. Rubin (1914–1996) was an American systems engineer and inventor, who was president of the

Society for General Systems Research The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is a worldwide organization for systems sciences. The overall purpose of the ISSS is: :"to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their ...

in 1968.

Biography

In 1914 Milton Rubin was born in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and attended Boston Latin School. He received his formal education at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in communications engineering and applied mathematics, and graduated from Harvard College with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in electrical engineering. His son, Mark Jonathon Rubin, was born in 1947. His daughter, Lise Diane Rubin, was born in 1950. Over the next 50 years, he worked for numerous engineering firms, where he served as manager of system engineering and consulting scientist. His career further included research into materials and components, and specialized in radar. In the 1940s he worked at the Raytheon Co. where he headed the Equipment Division. In 1954 he became consulting scientist, the highest professional level one can attain in the company. Later in the 1950s Rubin became Research Director at GA Philbrick Researches Inc. in Boston. From the 1960s until the 1980s he worked at the Mitre Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts. Rubin was organizationally active in the

. For years he was Secretary Treasurer and the Editor of the "General Systems Newsletter, quarterly". In 1968 he was president of the Society for General Systems Research. And in 1981 he received the IEEE-USA Award by the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

. Milton D. Rubin of Newton died Saturday July 6, 1996 at Clark House in Westwood. He was survived by his wife, Tillie Rubin, daughter, Lise Diane Rubin, grandson, Joel Benjamin, and granddaughter, Eva Weinstein.

Work

General Systems

One of the main lines of thought in

General Systems ''General Systems: Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research'', known as ''General Systems'', is the first annual journal in the field of systems science initiated in 1956, and initially edited by Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Anatol Rap ...

according to Rubin in 1966 Milton D. Rubin (1966), "General Systems and Systems Engineering", in: ''IEEE Transactions on Systems Science and Cybernetics'', Vol 2, Iss 1, Aug. 66 Pages:3-7. is the transfer of system concepts from one field to another. There has been fruitful application of such theoretical concepts from engineering to other fields such as biology. In his 1966 paper "General Systems and Systems Engineering" Rubin attempted "to apply concepts from biology to the practice of systems engineering. The relation of systems engineering to other fields is discussed, utilizing an intellectual framework based on the concepts of speciation and competition between species. The internal social structure of the profession and of individual organizations is considered, using the concept of competition within a species. Examples are drawn from biology to illustrate the points at issue". Rubin (1966). Rubin edited two books, contributed to one book and wrote several articles. ;Books * 1970, "Man in Systems" (ed.) New York: Gordon and Breach Science. * 1973, "Systems in Society" (ed.) Washington, D.C.: Society for General Systems Research. ;Contribution * 1968, "History of technological feedback". Chapter 2 in: "Positive Feedback; a General Systems Approach to Positive/negative Feedback and Mutual Causality". Edited by John Milsum. Oxford : Pergamon Press. ;Articles * 1965, "Society for General Systems Research (L2)", in: "Science", Feb 19, 147 (3660): 926–927. * 1966, "General Systems and Systems Engineering", in: "IEEE Transactions on Systems Science and Cybernetics", Vol 2, Issue 1, Aug. 66 Pages:3-7. * 1971, "One General Systems View of Education", in "General Systems", Vol 16, 125.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rubin, Milton D. 1914 births 1996 deaths American electrical engineers Harvard University alumni Systems engineers American systems scientists Mitre Corporation people 20th-century American engineers Presidents of the International Society for the Systems Sciences