The Steersman Goes Home

Norbert Wiener invented the mathematics of prediction. The Wiener process priced every option on Wall Street; the Wiener filter sits inside every noise-canceling headphone; he coined the word cybernetics from the Greek for steersman. He could speak twelve languages. He could not, with any reliability, find his car.

He drove one to Providence, took the train back to Cambridge, and the next morning reported it stolen. After a conference he sat in the parking lot until every other vehicle had been claimed, then drove home in the one that was left. In the MIT halls he read while walking, trailing a finger along the wall by a maze theorem of his own devising; when the finger went through an open classroom door, he followed it, circled the room past someone else's lecture, and came out the other side without looking up.

On the day his family moved house, his wife tucked the new address into his pocket. He found the paper, used it to work out an equation, decided the idea was wrong, and threw it away. At dusk he arrived at the old house, where a small girl was playing on the street outside. He introduced himself and asked if she happened to know where the Wieners had moved to.

"Yes, Daddy. Mommy thought you would forget."