Cybernetics at Reading — Retirement of Professor P.B. Fellgett FRS

Abstract

The Department of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, UK, owed its origin to a far‐sighted initiative taken by the University in the 1960s in which the late Professor Robert Ditchburn FRS (at that time the Professor of Physics in the University) played a leading part. The incumbent Vice‐Chancellor, Sir John Wolfenden, did not favour technological studies in universities but was prevailed upon to accept a Department of Applied Physical Sciences (APS) in which there were to be professorial Chairs in Applied Mechanics, Applied Electricity and Cybernetics. In the event the first two of these Chairs were combined into a professorship of Engineering Science, and the Chair thus released became associated with Materials Science. This produced a dichotomy which was reflected in 1974 in the name of the Department being changed from APS to the Department of Engineering and Cybernetics.

Citation

(1988), "Cybernetics at Reading — Retirement of Professor P.B. Fellgett FRS", Kybernetes, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 19-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb005789