We get a not-too-fanciful look into the future in a paper by Dr. Louis Fein presented in the summer 1961 issue of American Scientist, titled “Computer-related Sciences (Synnoetics) at a University in 1975.” Dr. Fein is an authority on computers, as builder of RAYDAC in 1952, and as founder and president of the Computer Control Company. The paper ostensibly is being given to alumni some years hence by the university president. Dr. Fein tells us that students in the Department of Synnoetics study the formal languages used in communication between the elements of a synnoetic system, operations research, game theory, information storage, organization and retrieval, and automatic programming. One important study is that of error, called Hamartiology, from the Greek word meaning “to miss the mark.”
The speaker tells us that this field was variously called cybernetics, information science, and finally computer-related science before being formally changed to the present synnoetics. A list of the courses available to undergraduates includes:
Von Neumann Machines and Turing Machines
Elements of Automatic Programming
Theory, Design, and Construction of Compilers
Algorithms: Theory, Design, and Applications
Foundations of the Science of Models
The Theory, Design, and Application of Non-Numeric Models
Heuristics
Self-Programming Computers