What is cybernetics theory?

Answer 1

Modern Cybernetics is usually considered to date from the work of Norbert Wiener. Whilst designing control systems, Wiener considered how a human would reach for an object - continually adjusting his hand until he reached the object. He formulated this behaviour mathematically and realised that he could use the same equations to describe how a man reaches for a cup and for a missile reaching a target.

Wiener used Cybernetics to describe this approach to problems; by comparing how Man (nowadays, "animals" is the term usually used) solves problems with how to solve them mechanically.

The principle technique of cybernetics is feedback; to take an extreme example, consider trying to land a space probe on a particular site on Mars. This is achieved to within a few kilometres on an object millions of kilometres away - an astonishing level of accuracy - like hitting a pinhead from a hundred miles away. At first look, this might seem impossible, but the probe is measuring the difference between where it is and where it wants to be (the error) and correcting for it (feeding back the error).