Norbert Wiener and Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis

For seven months from late 1955, Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) worked at the Indian Statistical Institute at the invitation of Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893-1972). Mahalanobis had achieved a remarkable feat, the creation of a world class institution within a decade of India´s independence. Wiener was also at the peak of his career, having established the field of cybernetics a few years earlier. These two major 20^th century leaders in the application of technology shared similarities in their backgrounds, and in their approach to the social value of science and technology. For Mahalanobis, Wiener´s visit was one of many which he oversaw, bringing international experts to his students and staff. For Wiener as the initiator of modern factory automation, India provided an opportunity to work on an idea important to him, alternative development models to the “smokestack industrialization” of the European industrial revolution. Both made contributions to the development of the sophisticated technology environment we see in India today.