Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)

Mindell, David A.

ISBN 10: 0801868955 / ISBN 13: 9780801868955

Editore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002

Very Good condition. Good dust jacket. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain light spine creasing or a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp. Codice articolo A11T-01312

Riassunto:

<p>Today, we associate the relationship between feedback, control, and computing with Norbert Wiener's 1948 formulation of cybernetics. But the theoretical and practical foundations for cybernetics, control engineering, and digital computing were laid earlier, between the two world wars. In <i>Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics</i>, David A. Mindell shows how the modern sciences of systems emerged from disparate engineering cultures and their convergence during World War II. </p><p>Mindell examines four different arenas of control systems research in the United States between the world wars: naval fire control, the Sperry Gyroscope Company, the Bell Telephone Laboratories, and Vannevar Bush's laboratory at MIT. Each of these institutional sites had unique technical problems, organizational imperatives, and working environments, and each fostered a distinct engineering culture. Each also developed technologies to represent the world in a machine.</p><p>At the beginning of World War II, President Roosevelt established the National Defense Research Committee, one division of which was devoted to control systems. Mindell shows how the NDRC brought together representatives from the four pre-war engineering cultures, and how its projects synthesized conceptions of control, communications, and computing. By the time Wiener articulated his vision, these ideas were already suffusing through engineering. They would profoundly influence the digital world.</p><p> As a new way to conceptualize the history of computing, this book will be of great interest to historians of science, technology, and culture, as well as computer scientists and theorists. <i>Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics</i></p>

Informazioni sugli autori: <p><b>David A. Mindell </b> is the Frances and David Dibner Associate Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of <i>War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor</i>, which was awarded the Society for the History of Technology's Sally Hacker Prize and is also available from Johns Hopkins. </p>

David A. Mindell is the Frances and David Dibner Associate Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor, which was awarded the Society for the History of Technology's Sally Hacker Prize and is also available from Johns Hopkins.

Dati bibliografici

Titolo: Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control...
Casa editrice: Johns Hopkins University Press
Data di pubblicazione: 2002
Legatura: Rilegato
Condizione: Very Good
Condizione sovraccoperta: sovraccoperta