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Ratio Club
The Ratio Club was a small British informal dining club from 1949 to 1958 of young psychiatrists, psychologists, physiologists, mathematicians and engineers who met to discuss issues in cybernetics., p. 95. History The idea of the club arose from a symposium on animal behaviour held in July 1949 by the Society of Experimental Biology in Cambridge. The club was founded by the neurologist John Bates, with other notable members such as W. Ross Ashby. The name ''Ratio'' was suggested by Albert Uttley, it being the Latin root meaning "computation or the faculty of mind which calculates, plans and reasons". He pointed out that it is also the root of ''rationarium'', meaning a statistical account, and ''ratiocinatius'', meaning argumentative. The use was probably inspired by an earlier suggestion by Donald Mackay of the 'MR club', from ''Machina ratiocinatrix'', a term used by Norbert Wiener in the introduction to his then recently published book '' Cybernetics, or Control an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dining Club
A dining club (UK) or eating club (US) is a Social club, social group, usually requiring membership (which may, or may not be available only to certain people), which meets for dinners and discussion on a regular basis. They may also often have guest speakers. United Kingdom A dining club differs from a gentlemen's club in that it does not have permanent premises, often changing the location of its meetings and dinners. Clubs may limit their membership to those who meet highly specific membership requirements. For example, the Coningsby Club requires members to have been a part of either Oxford University Conservative Association, OUCA or Cambridge University Conservative Association, CUCA, the Conservative Associations at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge respectively. Others may require applicants to pass an interview, or simply pay a membership fee. Early dining clubs include the Pitt Club, the Bullingdon Club, and the 16' Club. United States In the United States, sim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many other branches of mathematics, such as binary arithmetic and statistics. Leibniz has been called the "last universal genius" due to his vast expertise across fields, which became a rarity after his lifetime with the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the spread of specialized labor. He is a prominent figure in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He wrote works on philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law, history, philology, games, music, and other studies. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. Leibniz contributed to the field ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dining Clubs
A dining club (UK) or eating club (US) is a Social club, social group, usually requiring membership (which may, or may not be available only to certain people), which meets for dinners and discussion on a regular basis. They may also often have guest speakers. United Kingdom A dining club differs from a gentlemen's club in that it does not have permanent premises, often changing the location of its meetings and dinners. Clubs may limit their membership to those who meet highly specific membership requirements. For example, the Coningsby Club requires members to have been a part of either Oxford University Conservative Association, OUCA or Cambridge University Conservative Association, CUCA, the Conservative Associations at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge respectively. Others may require applicants to pass an interview, or simply pay a membership fee. Early dining clubs include the Pitt Club, the Bullingdon Club, and the 16' Club. United States In the United States, sim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with general principles that are relevant across multiple contexts, including in engineering, ecological, economic, biological, cognitive and social systems and also in practical activities such as designing, learning, and managing. Cybernetics' transdisciplinary character has meant that it intersects with a number of other fields, leading to it having both wide influence and diverse interpretations. The field is named after an example of circular causal feedback—that of steering a ship (the ancient Greek κυβερνήτης (''kybernḗtēs'') refers to the person who steers a ship). In steering a ship, the position of the rudder is adjusted in continual response to the effect it is observed as having, forming a feedback loop throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Organizations Established In 1949
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which study the physical world, and the social sciences, which study individuals and societies. While referred to as the formal sciences, the study of logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science are typically regarded as separate because they rely on deductive reasoning instead of the scientific method as their main methodology. Meanwhile, applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as engineering and medicine. The history of science spans the majority of the historical record, with the earliest identifiable predecessors to modern science dating to the Bronze Age in Egypt and Mesopotamia (). Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped the Greek natural philo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1949 Establishments In England
Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2025 * January 2 – Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico. * January 11 – The first "networked" television broadcasts take place, as KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, goes on the air, connecting east coast and mid-west programming in the United States. * January 16 – Şemsettin Günaltay forms the new government of Turkey. It is the 18th government, last One-party state, single party government of the Republican People's Party. * January 17 – The first Volkswagen Beetle, VW Type 1 to arrive in the United States, a 1948 model, is brought to New York City, New York by Dutch businessman Ben Pon Sr., Ben Pon. Unable to interest dealers or importers in the Volkswagen, Pon sells the sample car to pay his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giles Brindley
Giles Skey Brindley, FRS (born 30 April 1926) is a British physiologist, musicologist and composer, known for his contributions to the physiology of the retina and colour vision, and treatment of erectile dysfunction. Medical career Brindley is perhaps best known for an unusual scientific presentation at the 1983 Las Vegas meeting of the American Urological Association, where he removed his pants to show the audience his chemically induced erection and invited them to inspect it closely. He had injected phenoxybenzamine (using one mL of a mixture of 5 mg of Phenoxybenzamine in 10 mL of saline) into his penis in his hotel room before the presentation. Brindley is also a pioneer in visual prosthetics, developing one of the first visual prostheses in the 1960s. The device was tested on four blind patients, giving them some basic visual sensation, but given the technology of the day further development was impractical. He also developed sacral anterior root stimulators for bla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Woodward
Philip Mayne Woodward (6 September 1919 – 30 January 2018) was a British mathematician, radar engineer and horologist. He achieved notable success in all three fields. Before retiring, he was a deputy chief scientific officer at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment of the British Ministry of Defence in Malvern, Worcestershire. Achievements in mathematics and engineering Woodward's career in the Scientific Civil Service spanned four decades. He was responsible for the software of one of the UK's first electronic computers, the TRE Automatic Computer ( TREAC) followed by the UK's first solid state computer, the Royal Radar Establishment Automatic Computer. He is the author of the book ''Probability and Information Theory, with Applications to Radar''. During World War II, Woodward developed a mathematical beam-shaping technique for radar antennae, which was later to become standard in the analysis of communication signals. His principal achievement in radar was to eva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science. Born in London, Turing was raised in southern England. He graduated from University of Cambridge, King's College, Cambridge, and in 1938, earned a doctorate degree from Princeton University. During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre that produced Ultra (cryptography), Ultra intelligence. He led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Turing devised techniques for speeding the breaking of Germ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Westcott
John Hugh Westcott (3 November 1920 – 10 October 2014) was a British scientist specialising in control systems and Professor of Computing and Automation at Imperial College London. Career Westcott was educated at Wandsworth Grammar School, the City and Guilds College, both in London, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His career began in radar research during World War II. After a year in Germany with the Allied Commission, he obtained a scholarship to the MIT where many scientists returning from the services were addressing the early possibilities of computer applications. He was the first to lecture on the new field of cybernetics in Britain and was a member of the Ratio Club with Grey Walter, Alan Turing, Giles Brindley and others from various fields, who met between 1949 and 1952 to discuss brain mechanisms and related issues. He researched servo-mechanisms at Imperial College London, where he headed the new Department of Computing and Control from 1966. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Grey Walter
William Grey Walter (February 19, 1910 – May 6, 1977) was an United States, American-born United Kingdom, British neurophysiologist, cybernetician and robotician. Early life and education Walter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, United States, on 19 February 1910, the only child of Minerva Lucrezia (Margaret) Hardy (1879–1953), an American journalist, and Karl Wilhelm Walter (1880–1965), a British journalist who was working on the The Kansas City Star, Kansas City ''Star'' at the time. His parents had met and married in Italy, and during the First World War the family moved to Britain. Walter's ancestry was German/British on his father's side, and American/British on his mother's side. He was brought to England in 1915, educated at Westminster School with an interest in classics and science, and entered King's College, Cambridge, King's College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, in 1928. He achieved a third class in part one (1930) and a first cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eliot Slater
Eliot Trevor Oakeshott Slater MD (28 August 1904 – 15 May 1983) was a British psychiatrist who was a pioneer in the field of the genetics of mental disorders. He held senior posts at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London, and the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital. He was the author of some 150 scientific papers and the co-author of several books on psychiatric topics, notably on disputed 'physical methods'. From the mid-50s to his death, he co-edited ''Clinical Psychiatry'', the leading textbook for psychiatric trainees. Early life and medical education Eliot Slater was born in Plumstead, London, on 28 August 1904. His father was Gilbert Slater, an economic historian who became Professor of Indian Economics at the University of Madras and later principal of Ruskin College, Oxford. His mother, Violet Oakeshott, a Quaker and pacifist, was instrumental in sending him to Leighton Park School, Reading, from where he won an exhibition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
