In the spring of 1906, Pulitzer's popular weekly The World Magazine proclaimed 11-year-old Norbert Wiener the "Boy of the Century." At that prepubescent age, the awkward but gifted youth was well versed in the classics and philosophy and had a penchant for mathematics. He started his freshman year at Tufts University that fall. Graduating in just three years, with a degree in mathematics, he went on to Harvard and garnered the honor of becoming that university's youngest doctoral degree recipient at age 18, before going on to join the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology at age 24. His achievements should have elevated him to the enduring status enjoyed by his friends and colleagues T.S. Eliot, Margaret Mead and Amar Bose. Instead, he slipped into anonymity. In an attempt to rescue his life story and work, journalist Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman chronicle Wiener's brilliant but turbulent life in their well-researched and cogent book, "Dark Hero of the Information Age-In Search of Norbert Wiener, the Father of Cybernetics."

In Wiener's early professional life, he focused on theories and practical solutions in the fields of communications, electronics and machine automation. He was able to develop ideas intuitively, but he had difficulty with his eyesight, and his early intellectual development left him socially awkward. He was viewed by some of his fellow professors and researchers to be eccentric and often obscure. He constantly battled depression, family intrigue and jealous colleagues. Disappointments and perceived failure would drive him into a dark mood, and he needed constant bolstering and reminders of his accomplishments in order to feel happy and secure.

Wiener came of age at a point in history when science was moving from the theoretical foundations of Newton, Boyle, Descartes and Mendel-the fathers of modern physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology-to developing practical scientific applications to improve communications, computers, machines and medicine. As a postdoctoral student, he attended Cambridge University to study under the world's foremost mathematician and philosopher, Bertrand Russell. Though his relationship with Russell was usually adversarial, he followed one piece of Russell's advice and read Albert Einstein's collection of papers on special relativity, photoelectric behavior of metals and Brownian motion, published in 1905. These papers inspired him to apply advanced mathematics to explain the somewhat chaotic behavior of natural phenomena.

He began his work on a "computer" solving artillery-firing range tables at the U.S. Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds during the Great War. Wiener then took a position as a mathematics professor at MIT, or "the Tech," where he immediately set out to develop models using modern mathematics to solve practical problems in the emerging fields of electronics and communications. His interests branched out beyond engineering. Through collaboration with scientists from other disciplines, he was able to apply modern methods of statistical modeling and binary mathematics to explain complex physical and organic phenomena.

His career was recognized as brilliant, but he was constantly grappling with bouts of depression and rage. At the root of his turmoil were his father's teaching methods. The elder Leo Wiener was a professor at Harvard, and the educational regimen he chose for his young son was at times sadistic and was never affirming. As a boy, Norbert would stand beside his father's desk and recite his lessons. Any mistake would be met with a fit of rage and a barrage of berating remarks. This experience left the young Wiener hungry for public recognition, as well as vulnerable to the influence of his future wife, Margaret. When his difficult nature and depression became evident during their honeymoon, she immediately chose to isolate him from the people and daily events that would bring on those dark moments. Her devotion to Wiener was total, but jealousy and a streak of intolerance helped precipitate his downfall, in which what may have been Wiener's most important research effort was destroyed and the long-term friendships he had forged with his laboratory staff ended.

Triumph and decline were simultaneous. Wiener's book "Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in Animal and Machine," published in 1948, ignited a firestorm of inquiry into a new science that would lead to the possibility of machines that emulated humans. His interdisciplinary approach helped him to create mathematical models explaining the inner workings of nature's machines and their relationships to other beings and the environment. He conjectured that all systems worked using "circular logic," and, most importantly, systems used "feedback" information to adjust to change. "Cybernetics" became the hottest topic in scientific, industrial and governmental circles; it seemed to have a universal application. Five years later, Weiner was named chairman of MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics. He could finally be fully engaged in a cybernetics project. Yet soon after the research commenced, a seemingly inexplicable rift developed between Weiner and his research staff, and Wiener publicly renounced the project and its staff.

Through interviews with family, friends and colleagues and the collection of contemporary letters, papers and his autobiography, Conway and Siegleman piece together the causes of his professional decline, his constant concerns for the dangers of modern science and his descent into obscurity. "Dark Hero of the Information Age" rescues Wiener's accomplishments, explains his involvement in social activism, and chronicles his overt objection to governmental and industrial funding of research. Explaining his ideas and developments in a clear and crisp fashion while preserving his humanity and humor, Conway and Siegleman have catalogued the remarkable achievements of this truly unique individual whose work rests at the very foundation of 21st-century technology.