Heinz von Foerster was the inventor of second-order cybernetics, which recognizes the investigator as part of the system he is investigating. The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name provides an accessible, nonmathematical, and comprehensive overview of von Foerster’s cybernetic ideas and of the philosophy latent within them. It distills concepts scattered across the lifework of this scientific polymath and influential interdisciplinarian. At the same time, as a book-length interview, it does justice to von Foerster’s élan as a speaker and improviser, his skill as a raconteur. Developed from a week-long conversation between the editors and von Foerster near the end of his life, this work playfully engages von Foerster in developing the difference his notion of second-order cybernetics makes for topics ranging from emergence, life, order, and thermodynamics to observation, recursion, cognition, perception, memory, and communication. The book gives an English-speaking audience a new ease of access to the rich thought and generous spirit of this remarkable and protean thinker. Relevance: It presents the most comprehensive interview with Heinz von Foerster available in English.

Modulation of light at 3 and 6 kMc is achieved by applying a superimposed electrostatic and microwave field to a carbon-disulfide Kerr-cell which is incorporated within the high-electric-field region of a resonant cavity. The development of this light shutter requires the analysis of the Kerr effect under circumstances in which the transit time of light is appreciable. A Kerr cell whose length is such that the transit time of light is one-half the period of the modulating microwave field proves to have particular advantages over other designs. The light shutter is realized with a re-entrant microwave cavity with provision for the application of electrostatic as well as microwave fields. At about 26-kv dc and 10-kw pulsed 3-kMc ac power, the system modulates a light beam of several milliwatts radiant power up to 80%.

A two-parameter basilar membrane model with uniform geometry, mass, and stiffness distribution is studied. The exact solution of the equation of motion is obtained. For certain model configurations the displacement patterns of the membrane consist of traveling waves and damped standing waves. A place principle is observed with the direction of the shift governed by the relative magnitudes of the model parameters. The qualitative effect of a stiffness gradient along the membrane on the place principle is discussed. Thresholds, with respect to frequency, are found that suggestthat the location of the low-frequency threshold depends only on the membrane length.

Key words: self-organization, game theory

Key words: Self-organization, game theory

One of the primary problems in statistical mechanics is to find in a system of a large number of freely interacting elements (particles) the distribution of the available energy over all elements which will be observed in most of the cases when the number of elements N1 are counted which possess energies that fall within an “energy-bracket” Ei ± ½δ of width δE; (i = 1, 2, 3, …). In a conservative system in which the number of elements, N, and the available energy, E, are given and remain unchanged, the most probable distribution is, of course, Boltzmann’s distribution function which maximizes the entropy of the system and has the form of a decaying exponential Ni = No exp(-Ei/E*), in which E*, a universal parameter for this system, is the average energy per particle, and expresses through the Boltzmann’s constant k (1.378 ergs/centigrade) the “temperature” T of the system T = E*/k.