Systems theory to social sciences (see David Easton's seminal development of the "political system" as an analytical construct), the original theorists explored the implications of twentieth century advances in terms of systems. People have studied subjects like complexity, self-organization, connectionism and adaptive systems in the 1940s and 1950s. In fields like cybernetics, researchers such as Norbert Wiener, William Ross Ashby, John von Neumann and Heinz von Foerster, examined complex systems mathematically. John von Neumann discovered cellular automata and self-reproducing systems, again with only pencil and paper. Aleksandr Lyapunov and Jules Henri Poincaré worked on the foundations of chaos theory without any computer
Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications colloquium, and a keynote lecture. The speakers are top researchers in pure and applied harmonic analysis in academia, government, and industry. The Director of the NWC is John Benedetto. The faculty members include: John Benedetto, Radu Balan, Wojciech Czaja, and Kasso Okoudjou. The current Scientific Development Officers include Michael Dellomo, Jeffrey Sieracki, and Alfredo Nava-Tudela. The current postdoctoral fellows include Xuemei Chen and Benjamin Manning. The associate director of the center is Matthew Begué. A list of all other members, including all graduate students, can be found on the center's official website. Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications