Norbert Wiener on the theory of measurement (1914, 1915, 1921) (Q1193374)

Although the famous Norbert Wiener has made paramount contributions to mathematics in the fields of function spaces, stochastic processes, harmonic analysis, Fourier transforms, ergodic theory and communication theory, it was only recently that his very special contribution to the representational theory of measurement was generally recognized and accepted. In this connection, the authors' present study is devoted to Wiener's early contributions (1914, 1915, 1921) to the theory of relations and measurement theory, known as generalizing linear orders to interval orders, generalizing transivity and completeness to \(\underline n\)-ary relations, and psychophysical measurements of phenomena subject to discriminability thresholds through comparisons between pairs of differences or intervals. It is at least curious that Wiener's subsequent contributions to Brownian motion, Fourier transforms, and ergodic theory were generally and enthusiastically accepted in his lifetime, but his ``Principia'' passed almost unnoticed. The 1914 paper attempts ``to simplify and generalize certain notions used by (Russell) in ... the relation between the series of events and the series of instances''. The third volume of ``Principia Mathematica'' (1921) develops an original theory of measurement, although it is not to be applied to situations in which magnitudes are bounded above.