Louis Pierre Couffignal (16 March 1902 – 4 July 1966) was a French
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
and
cybernetics
Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...
pioneer, born in
Monflanquin. He taught in schools in the southwest of
Brittany
Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...
, then at the naval academy and, eventually, at the Buffon School.
Biography
After joining the school, Couffignal hesitated to write a thesis on Symbolic Logic but after his meetings with
Philbert Maurice d'Ocagne, he decided to focus on machines and on Mechanical Logic.
He published a variety of notes at the Academy of Sciences, with a focus on using binary computation by machines to solve new problems. Following
Leibniz, he promoted binary numbers as the basis of calculating machines. Couffignal received his Doctorate of Sciences in 1938 with his thesis on Mechanical Analysis, demonstrating applications for machines to calculate celestial mechanics. Couffignal took on an interest in Cybernetics, influenced by his meetings with
Louis Lapicque in 1941 and the cyberneticist
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and philosopher. He became a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener late ...
in 1946.
With Lapicque, Couffignal compared the functioning of the
nervous system
In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...
and that of machines, as Wiener prepared his book ''Cybernetics'', the book that established the foundations for the subject.
Between 1938 and 1960, Couffignal was the director of the Blaise Pascal Calculation Center. In 1945, he was named Inspector General of Public Teaching. In 1951, Couffignal prepared an international conference on thinking machines to bring together the greatest specialists in this new science, including
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and philosopher. He became a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener late ...
,
W. Ross Ashby,
Warren McCulloch, etc. As Inspector General, he created the first BTS teaching degree in France.
Publications
Couffignal wrote several books and articles. A selection:
* ''Les machines à calculer. Leurs principes. Leur évolution''.
* 1952, ''Les machines à penser''. Couffignal Éditions de Minuit.
* 1956, "Essai d’une définition générale de la cybernétique", The First International Congress on Cybernetics, Namur, Belgium, June 26–29, 1956, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1958, pp. 46–54
* 1968, ''Le dossier de la cybernétique'' – Marabout Université 1968
* 1972, ''La cybernétique et ses théoriciens'' – Delpech J.L Ed. Casterman.
* 1978, ''La cybernétique'', Presses Universitaires France.
See also
*
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...
External links
Louis Couffignal: Trait d'union entre bastide et cybernétiqueby Patrick Saint-Jean (French)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Couffignal, Louis
1902 births
1966 deaths
People from Monflanquin
20th-century French mathematicians
Cyberneticists
Place of death missing
Officers of the Legion of Honour