Warren Weaver (b. July 17, 1894 in Reedsburg, Wisconsin d. Events 180 - Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians Year 1894 ( MDCCCXCIV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Reedsburg is a city in Sauk County, Wisconsin, along the Baraboo River. November 24, 1978 in New Milford, Connecticut) was an American scientist, mathematician, and science administrator. Events 380 - Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal Year 1978 ( MCMLXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar) New Milford (incorporated 1712 is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States north of Danbury, on the Housatonic The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A scientist, in the broadest sense refers to any person that engages in a systematic activity to acquire Knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. He is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of machine translation, and as an important figure in creating support for science in the United States. Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation
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Career
Weaver graduated in 1919 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with degrees in civil engineering and mathematics. Year 1919 ( MCMXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and He became an assistant professor of mathematics at Throop College (soon to be re-named the California Institute of Technology) before returning to teach mathematics at Wisconsin (1920–32). The California Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Caltech) is a private, Coeducational research university located in Pasadena Wisconsin ( or wɪˈskɑnsɨn (French Ouisconsin) is one of the fifty United States of America, located in the north central part of the United States Weaver married Mary Hemenway, one of his fellow students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a few years after their graduation. They had a son, Warren Jr. , and a daughter, Helen.
He was director of the Division of Natural Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation (1932–55), and was science consultant (1947–51), trustee (1954), and vice president (from 1958) at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. In Science, the term natural science refers to a naturalistic approach to the study of the Universe, which is understood as obeying rules or law of The Rockefeller Foundation (RF is a prominent Philanthropic organization and Private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue New York City. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC is a Cancer treatment and research institution founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. Weaver's chief researches were in the problems of communication in science and in the mathematical theory of probability and statistics. Probability is the likelihood or chance that something is the case or will happen Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection analysis interpretation or explanation and presentation of Data.
At the Rockefeller Foundation, he was responsible for approving grants for major projects in molecular engineering and genetics, in agriculture (particularly for developing new strains of wheat and rice), and in medical research. The Rockefeller Foundation (RF is a prominent Philanthropic organization and Private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue New York City. Molecular engineering is any means of manufacturing Molecules It may be used to create on an extremely small scale most typically one at a time new molecules which may not Genetics (from Ancient Greek grc-Latn genetikos, “genitive” and that from grc-Latn genesis, “origin” a discipline of Biology, is Agriculture refers to the production of goods through the growing of plants and fungi and the raising of domesticated Animals The study of agriculture In biology strain is a low-level Taxonomic rank used in three related ways Wheat ( Triticum spp is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Levant area of the Middle East. Rice is a Cereal foodstuff which forms an important part of the diet of many people worldwide and as such it is a staple food for many Biomedical research (or experimental medicine) in general simply known as medical research, is the Basic research or Applied research conducted During World War II, he was seconded from the Foundation to head the Applied Mathematics Panel at the U. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Applied Mathematics Panel (AMP was created at the end of 1942 as a division of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC within the Office of Scientific Research S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, directing the work of hundreds of mathematicians in operations research. The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD was an agency of the United States federal government created to coordinate scientific research for military purposes Operations Research (OR in North America South Africa and Australia and Operational Research in Europe is an interdisciplinary branch of applied Mathematics and He was therefore fully familiar with the development of electronic calculating machines and the successful application of mathematical and statistical techniques in cryptography. A calculating machine is a machine designed to come up with calculations or in other words computations Cryptography (or cryptology; from Greek grc κρυπτός kryptos, "hidden secret" and grc γράφω gráphō, "I write"
He was co-author (together with Claude Shannon) of the landmark work on communication, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (1949, Urbana: University of Illinois Press). Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30 1916 – February 24 2001 an American Electronic engineer and Mathematician, is "the father of Information Communication is the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood the same way While Shannon focused more on the engineering aspects of the mathematical model, Weaver developed the philosophical implications of Shannon's much larger essay (which forms about 3/4th of the book). Engineering is the Discipline and Profession of applying technical and scientific Knowledge and Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language
The "Translation" memorandum
Weaver had first mentioned the possibility of using digital computers to translate documents between natural human languages in March 1947 in a letter to the cyberneticist Norbert Wiener. A computer is a Machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions. Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Year 1947 ( MCMXLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the Structure of Complex systems especially Communication processes control mechanisms and Feedback Norbert Wiener ( November 26, 1894, Columbia Missouri – March 18, 1964, Stockholm, Sweden) was an American In the following two years, he had been urged by his colleagues at the Rockefeller Foundation to elaborate on his ideas. The result was a memorandum, entitled simply "Translation," which he wrote in July 1949 at Carlsbad, New Mexico [1]
Said to be probably the single most influential publication in the early days of machine translation, it formulated goals and methods before most people had any idea of what computers might be capable of, and was the direct stimulus for the beginnings of research first in the United States and then later, indirectly, throughout the world. Year 1949 ( MCMXLIX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The impact of Weaver’s memorandum is attributable not only to his widely recognized expertise in mathematics and computing, but also, and perhaps even more, to the influence he enjoyed with major policy-makers in U. S. government agencies.
Weaver’s memorandum was designed to suggest more fruitful methods than any simplistic word-for-word approach, which had grave limitations. He put forward four proposals. These were that the problem of multiple meanings might be tackled by the examination of immediate context; that it could be assumed that there are logical elements in language; that cryptographic methods were possibly applicable, and that there may also be linguistic universals. Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. A linguistic universal is a statement that is true for all Natural languages For example All languages have Nouns and Verbs, or All spoken
At the end of the memorandum, Weaver asserted his belief in the fourth proposal with what is one of the best-known metaphors in the literature of machine translation: “Think, by analogy, of individuals living in a series of tall closed towers, all erected over a common foundation. Metaphor (from the Greek: μεταφορά - metaphora, meaning "transfer" is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects Analogy is both the cognitive process of transferring Information from a particular subject (the analogue or source to another particular subject (the target and When they try to communicate with one another, they shout back and forth, each from his own closed tower. It is difficult to make the sound penetrate even the nearest towers, and communication proceeds very poorly indeed. Sound' is Vibration transmitted through a Solid, Liquid, or Gas; particularly sound means those vibrations composed of Frequencies But, when an individual goes down his tower, he finds himself in a great open basement, common to all the towers. Here he establishes easy and useful communication with the persons who have also descended from their towers. ”
Advocate for science
Weaver early understood how greatly the tools and techniques of physics and chemistry could advance knowledge of biological processes, and used his position in the Rockefeller Foundation to identify, support, and encourage the young scientists who years later earned Nobel Prizes and other honours for their contributions to genetics or molecular biology. Physics (Greek Physis - φύσις in everyday terms is the Science of Matter and its motion. Chemistry (from Egyptian kēme (chem meaning "earth") is the Science concerned with the composition structure and properties A biological process is a process of a living Organism (either plant or animal The Nobel Prize (Nobelpriset (Nobelprisen is a Swedish prize established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Peace, Literature Genetics (from Ancient Greek grc-Latn genetikos, “genitive” and that from grc-Latn genesis, “origin” a discipline of Biology, is Molecular biology is the study of Biology at a molecular level
He had a deep personal commitment to improving the public understanding of science. He was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1954 and Chairman of the Board in 1955, a member or chairman of numerous boards and committees, and the primary author of the Arden House Statement, a 1951 declaration of principle and guide to setting the Association's goals, plans, and procedures. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (or AAAS) is an organization that promotes cooperation between Scientists defends scientific freedom encourages In 1965 he was awarded the first Arches of Science Medal for outstanding contributions to the public understanding of the meaning of science to contemporary men and women, and UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for distinguished contributions to the popular understanding of science. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16 The Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science is an Award given by UNESCO for exceptional skill in presenting scientific ideas to lay people.
Other activities
Weaver was fascinated by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865 is a novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson better known under the Pseudonym Lewis In 1964, having built up a collection of 160 versions in 42 languages, Weaver wrote a book about the translation history of Alice called Alice in many tongues: The translations of Alice in Wonderland. [2]. Among other features, it provides excerpts from the business correspondence of author Lewis Carroll (the Reverend Charles Dodgson) dealing with publishing royalties and permissions as Alice's fame snowballed worldwide. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (ˈdɒdsən (27 January 1832 &ndash 14 January 1898 better known by the Pen name Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ was an English Ever the scientist, even in the area of literature, Weaver devised a design for evaluating the quality of the various versions, focusing on the nonsense, puns and logical jokes in the Mad Tea-Party scene. His range of contacts provided an impressive if eccentric list of collaborators in the evaluation exercise including anthropologist Margaret Mead (for the South Pacific Pidgin translation), longtime Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, and Nobel laureate biochemist Hugo Theorell (Swedish). Margaret Mead ( December 16, 1901, Philadelphia &ndash November 15, 1978, New York City) was an American A pidgin is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common in situations such as Trade Theodor "Teddy" Kollek ( טדי קולק) ( May 27, 1911 &ndash January 2 2007) was Mayor of Jerusalem Axel Hugo Theodor Theorell ( July 6, 1903 &ndash August 15, 1982) was a Swedish scientist and Nobel Prize laureate
Notes
- ^ Reproduced in: Locke, W. N. and Booth, A. D. (eds. ) Machine translation of languages: fourteen essays (Cambridge, Mass. : Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1955), pp. 15-23.
- ^ Weaver, W. (1964). Alice in many tongues. The translations of Alice in Wonderland. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.
References
Hutchins, W. J. (2000). Early years in machine translation : memoirs and biographies of pioneers. Amsterdam, John Benjamins.
- Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver: The Mathematical Theory of Communication. The University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois, 1949. ISBN 0-252-72548-4. (Based on http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/paper.html )
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