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Wiener, N.: Die Versuchung. Geschichte einer grossen Erfindung. 267pp. Econ, Düsseldorf 1960
ich habe den englischen Text als pdf
Anmerkungen von rt
Ein quasi-biographischer Roman über den moralisch legitimen Diebstahl der wesentlichen Patentideen der Kybernetik: Ein Mathematiker wird nach Strich und Faden betrogen. Die grosse Erfindung der amerikanischen Konzerne besteht darin, den komerziellen Nutzen der eigentlichen Erfindung zu patentieren zu lassen. Das Patentverfahren ist sehr komplex und bedarf vieler "Schlaumeiereien" und moralischer Selbstüberlistungen.
Im Roman wird der Aufstieg eines ETH-Ingenieurs beschrieben, der sich von einem amerikanischen Industriellen und dessen Patentanwälte in die Geheimnisse des Erfindens einführen lässt. Die Erfindungen des englischen Mathematikers werden unter Vortäuschung von Freundschaft in die Firma geholt, wo sie patentfähig operationalisiert werden. Da dieser Diebstahl auffliegen könnte, wir ein idiotischer Hochschullehrer - auch unter Vortäuschung von Freundschaft so eingespannt, dass er sich einbildet, er hätte diese Erfindungen gemacht. Der Hochschullehrer publiziert, was man ihm zuhält und die Firma kauft dann die "eigenen" Erfindungen dem Hochschullehrer für viel Geld ab, und kann so beweisen, dass sie auf rechtmässigem Weg zu den Erfindungen gekommen ist.
Eine wirklich gute Geschichte, die auch sehr gut geschrieben ist.
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„Die Versuchung: Geschichte einer großen Erfindung“ (Originaltitel: The Tempter) ist ein Roman des amerikanischen Mathematikers und Kybernetik-Pioniers Norbert Wiener aus dem Jahr 1959. Die deutsche Übersetzung erschien 1960 im Econ Verlag. Das Werk thematisiert die ethischen Konflikte, Gefahren von Industriespionage und den ethischen Preis des wissenschaftlichen Fortschritts.
Kernpunkte des Romans
Die Handlung: Ein genialer Erfinder entwickelt ein bahnbrechendes neues technisches Gerät.
Der Konflikt: Der Erfinder gerät in einen schweren moralischen Konflikt.Das Thema: Wiener prangert Habgier, Industriespionage und die Kommerzialisierung wissenschaftlicher Errungenschaften an.Der Hintergrund: Norbert Wiener verarbeitete in dem Buch eigene Erfahrungen und Bedenken als Wissenschaftler.Als Pionier der Kybernetik warnte er früh vor den gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen unkontrollierter technologischer Entwicklungen. Der Roman spiegelt seine kritische Haltung gegenüber einer rein profitorientierten Ausbeutung von Erfindungen wider.
Soll ich Ihnen:Eine detaillierte Zusammenfassung der Handlung geben?Mehr über Norbert Wieners wissenschaftliche Werke (wie Kybernetik) erzählen?Lassen Sie mich wissen, in welche Richtung wir weitergehen sollen.
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gerne eine detaillierte Zusammenfassung der HandlungIn dem Roman „Die Versuchung: Geschichte einer großen Erfindung“ beichtet der geniale Ingenieur Gregory James in einem Brief seinen moralischen Verfall, als er die Ideen eines Außenseiters stiehlt, um sie mit Hilfe des Blendwerkes von Diego Dominguez für die Firma William Controls zu vermarkten. Die Geschichte ist ein Plädoyer gegen die Kommerzialisierung der Wissenschaft, wobei James am Ende seines Lebens versucht, seine Rolle als „Ideen-Pirat“ zu reflektieren. Diese Beichte entlarvt die Ausbeutung von Forschungsergebnissen durch Konzerne.Mehr Informationen zu dem Roman und seiner Entstehung finden Sie bei Kirkus Reviews und in der New York Times.
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https://www.nytimes.com/1959/10/25/archives/promoters-and-poachers-the-tempter-by-norbert-viencr-240-pp-new.html
Promoters And Poachers; THE TEMPTER. By Norbert V/iencr. 240 pp. New Yort': Rendom House. $3.ZS.
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By E. B: Garside
Oct. 25, 1959
Promoters And Poachers; THE TEMPTER. By Norbert V/iencr. 240 pp. New Yort': Rendom House. $3.ZS.
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It is with some trepidation that one approaches a first novel by Norbert Wiener. Dr. Wiener of M. I. T. is the inventor of cybernetics, theory of automatic controls and feed- back systems. He is also the master of thirteen languages, including Chinese. Beyond this he is a wit, philosopher and a former prodigy who, at 65, has become one of the ornaments of the American intellectual scene. But as his story is broached unease soon gives way to curiosity, and curiosity to fascination.
Wiener's theme is the role of opportunism in big-scale industrial engineering. He undertakes to show how the pure scientist is exploited by the entrepreneur with the aid of "tempters," or intellectual pimps, who know how to pirate theory and how to profit from its application. This theme, of course, is familiar to any observer of American industrial history; it is inherent in our materialistic scheme. But its detailed workings remain a mystery to many—and it is these the author lays bare with sardonic precision.
The protagonist is Gregory James, born Gregor Hagopian, the son of an Armenian rug- dealer in Odessa. After first- rate technical training in Switzerland, the young man migrates to America to make his fortune. A fellow-passenger on the boat is Diego Dominguez, also a science student and an opportunist par excellence.
In the promised land, the two students part for a time. The transplanted Armenian, curbing certain Tolstoyan scruples left over from his youth, soon makes his mark. Eventually, he swims to the top in the Williams Controls Corporation as an industrial researcher whose principal job is to smell out new ideas for his boss. Hagopian (now James) finds his principal source of inspiration in an Englishman named Woodbury, an eccentric, self- taught engineer and mathematician, who soon becomes the younger man's friend and mentor. Woodbury has already generalized the theory of automatic controls; Hagopian quick to grasp their importance in the factories of tomorrow. Once he has sold the idea to the head man at Williams, it is a simple matter to set up a production campaign that turns out actual servo-mechanisms based on Woodbury's ideas, which Hagopian deftly appropriates.
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A "front" is still needed for the enterprise, and at this point Dominguez is whisked back into the story-line. An unsatisfied math teacher at an obscure uni- versity, he is mesmerized into the belief that he has inspired the new devices, after Hagopian has fed him the basic ideas and helped him to work them up into papers for scientific journals. The strategem is climaxed when Dominguez is paid a huge lump sum for his "inventions," which are promptly patented, in the firm's name, by the Williams' legal department. By now, of course, Wood- bury has been neatly elbowed from the picture. In the end, his erstwhile disciple, Hagopian, consoles him with a small pension and professional honors. As a final ironic note, thanks to nation-wide publicity. Dominguez is acclaimed as one of the great scientists of his century, a fiction the opportunist eagerly swallows.
THIS densely plotted novel is filled with curious, bitter overtones. In its muffled way, it recalls many unrelated writings: Santayana's "The Last Puritan," William Olaf Stapleton's science fantasies, the Lanny Budd novels of Upton Sinclair. The author tells his story through Hagopian. From the first, the narrator speaks in an elaborately circumstantial, lapidary manner, to bring out the "tempter's" spiritual deformity. Evidently, it is the author's intent to tailor his style to the man.
It must be regretfully noted that Wiener's gift of language (Chinese notwithstanding) is better suited to mathematics than to novelistic creation. But he has chosen a vital theme, and opened a new avenue of fictional interest. In its off- beat way, this book may someday be a collector's item.
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https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/norbert-wiener/the-tempter-2/
THE TEMPTER
by Norbert Wiener ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 22, 1959
The Tempter is engineer-scientist Gregory James, educated in Switzerland, born in Russia, chief engineer of William Controls and a pioneer of control devices in marine engineering and automation. Combining to an unusual degree pure science with a love of business manipulations, James leads into temptation Diego Dominguez, a mediocre scientist with a big reputation, whom his company needs as a ""cover"" for their quasi-legal borrowing of ideas from an English eccentric self-taught engineering genius. James had little personal life (his one and only love died young); he considered his employer's children almost as his own; and the novel is written in the form of a letter to the eldest son. This fictional apologia pro vita sua, the first novel of one of the world's foremost mathematicians, is as might be expected from Wiener an interesting, authentic, quite definite and easily understandable picture of a part of the world of applied science over the past 40 years. All the more disappointing in contrast is the author's pedestrian use of language. An above average novel by virtue of its subject and the reputation of its author.
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