Ratio Club
Encyclopedia
The Ratio Club was a small informal dining club
of young psychologists
, physiologists
, mathematicians
and engineers
who met to discuss issues in cybernetics
.
The idea of the club arose from a symposium
on animal behaviour held by the Society of Experimental Biology
in Cambridge
, July 1949. The club was founded by the neurologist
John Bates and continued to meet until 1958.
The name Ratio was suggested by Albert Uttley, it being the Latin root meaning "computation or the faculty of mind which calculates, plans and reasons". He pointed out that it is also the root of rationarium, meaning a statistical account, and ratiocinatius, meaning argumentative. The use was probably inspired by an earlier suggestion by Donald Mackay of the MR club, from Machina ratiocinatrix, a term used by Norbert Wiener
in the introduction to his then recently published book Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Wiener used the term in reference to calculus ratiocinator, a calculating machine constructed by Leibniz.
The initial membership was William Ross Ashby
, Horace Barlow
, John Bates, George Dawson, Thomas Gold
, W. E. Hick
, Victor Little, Donald MacKay
, Turner McLardy, P. A. Merton, John Pringle, Harold Shipton, Donald Sholl, Eliot Slater
, Albert Uttley, W. Grey Walter
and John Hugh Westcott. Alan Turing
joined after the first meeting with I.J. Good, Philip Woodward
and William Rushton
added soon after. Giles Brindley
was also a member for a short period.
The club was the most intellectually powerful and influential cybernetics grouping in the UK, and many of its members went on to become extremely prominent scientists.
Dining club
A dining club is a social group, usually requiring membership , which meets for dinners and discussion on a regular basis. They may also often have guest speakers...
of young psychologists
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, physiologists
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
, mathematicians
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and engineers
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
who met to discuss issues in cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
.
The idea of the club arose from a symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
on animal behaviour held by the Society of Experimental Biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, July 1949. The club was founded by the neurologist
Neurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...
John Bates and continued to meet until 1958.
The name Ratio was suggested by Albert Uttley, it being the Latin root meaning "computation or the faculty of mind which calculates, plans and reasons". He pointed out that it is also the root of rationarium, meaning a statistical account, and ratiocinatius, meaning argumentative. The use was probably inspired by an earlier suggestion by Donald Mackay of the MR club, from Machina ratiocinatrix, a term used by Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener was an American mathematician.A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a...
in the introduction to his then recently published book Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Wiener used the term in reference to calculus ratiocinator, a calculating machine constructed by Leibniz.
The initial membership was William Ross Ashby
William Ross Ashby
W. Ross Ashby was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of complex systems. His first name was not used: he was known as Ross Ashby....
, Horace Barlow
Horace Barlow
Horace Basil Barlow FRS is a British visual neuroscientist.Barlow is the son of the civil servant Sir Alan Barlow and his wife Lady Nora, , and thus the great-grandson of Charles Darwin . He earned an M.D...
, John Bates, George Dawson, Thomas Gold
Thomas Gold
Thomas Gold was an Austrian-born astrophysicist, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society . Gold was one of three young Cambridge scientists who in the 1950s proposed the now mostly abandoned 'steady...
, W. E. Hick
W. E. Hick
William Edmund Hick was a British psychologist, who was a pioneer in the new sciences of experimental psychology and ergonomics in the mid-20th century....
, Victor Little, Donald MacKay
Donald MacCrimmon MacKay
Donald MacCrimmon MacKay was a physicist who as 'Granada Research Professor' founded the Department of Communication and Neuroscience at the University of Keele...
, Turner McLardy, P. A. Merton, John Pringle, Harold Shipton, Donald Sholl, Eliot Slater
Eliot Slater
Eliot Trevor Oakeshott Slater MD , was a British psychiatrist who was a pioneer in the field of the genetics of mental disorders. He held senior posts at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London, and the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital...
, Albert Uttley, W. Grey Walter
William Grey Walter
W. Grey Walter was a neurophysiologist and robotician.-Overview:Walter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1910. His ancestry was German/British on his father's side, and American/British on his mother's side. He was brought to England in 1915, and educated at Westminster School and afterwards...
and John Hugh Westcott. Alan Turing
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...
joined after the first meeting with I.J. Good, Philip Woodward
Philip Woodward
Philip Woodward is a British mathematician, radar engineer and horologist. He has achieved notable success in all three fields. Before retirement, he was a Deputy Chief Scientific Officer at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment of the British Ministry of Defence in Malvern,...
and William Rushton
W. A. H. Rushton
William Albert Hugh Rushton FRS was professor of Physiology at Trinity College, Cambridge. His main interest lay in colour vision and his Principle of Univariance is of seminal importance in the study of perception....
added soon after. Giles Brindley
Giles Brindley
Sir Giles Skey Brindley, GBE , is a British physiologist, musicologist and composer.He made important contributions to the treatment of erectile dysfunction, and is perhaps best known for an unusual scientific presentation at the 1983 Las Vegas meeting of the American Urological Association, where...
was also a member for a short period.
The club was the most intellectually powerful and influential cybernetics grouping in the UK, and many of its members went on to become extremely prominent scientists.
External links
- "Grey Walter’s Anticipatory Tortoises" by Margaret BodenMargaret BodenDr Margaret A. Boden, OBE, is a combinative researcher in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Psychology, Philosophy, Cognitive and Computer Science...
, in: The Rutherford JournalThe Rutherford JournalThe Rutherford Journal is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers the history and philosophy of science and technology.It publishes invited articles and is edited by Jack Copeland . The journal is published annually, starting from December 2005...
, Volume 2, 2006–2007.