Lot 218: Book Smarts

First Edition of Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, 1948

Written by Norbert Wiener

Catalog estimate: US $15 000-$20 000

Auction price: $14 400

This 1948 first edition of Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine belonged to the book's author, Norbert Wiener, and contains his extensive handwritten corrections for the second edition. In drawing together mathematical theories of communication and computation with physiology and engineering, Cybernetics established the nascent science of control and helped bring computing into the everyday world.

Lot 180: Offprint from Bell System Technical Journal #27, 1948

Written by C.E. Shannon

Catalog estimate: US $8000-$12 000

Auction price: $9000

An offprint from the 1948 Bell System Technical Journal #27, this is one of the earliest copies of the founding document of information theory. Any system that transmits information, from telegraph lines to deep space probes, follows principles first elucidated in this monograph. Claude Shannon's A mathematical theory of communication also introduced the term bit to a wide audience.