Bebe and Louis Barron and the Machine", by mathematician Norbert Wiener from MIT played an important role in the development of the Barrons' composition. The science of cybernetics proposes that certain natural laws of behavior apply to both animals and more complex electronic machines. By following the equations presented in the book, Louis was able to build electronic circuits which he manipulated to generate sounds. Most of the tonalities were generated with a circuit called a ring modulator. The sounds and patterns that came out of the circuits were unique and unpredictable because they were actually overloading the circuits until they burned out to
William James Sidis of intelligence as "silly, pedantic, absurd, and grossly misleading". Regardless of the exaggerations, Sidis is judged by other high IQ peers such as MIT Physics professor Daniel Frost Comstock and notable American mathematician Norbert Wiener to have had real ability. Sidis' life and work, particularly his ideas about Native Americans, are extensively discussed in Robert M. Pirsig's book "" (1991). Sidis is also discussed in "Ex-Prodigy", an autobiography by mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894–1964), who was a prodigy himself and a contemporary of Sidis at Harvard. A Danish author Morten Brask wrote a fictional novel based on Sidis' life; "The Perfect