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Between Human And Machine:Feedback, Control and Computing Before Cybernetics

David A. Mindell PhD '96: October 10, 2002; Running Time: 01:18:41

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

Today, the relationship between feedback, control and computing is associated 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 his book, David A. Mindell shows how the modern sciences of systems emerged from disparate engineering cultures and their convergence during World War II.

"Between Human and Machine" is published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002, and is available at:
http://www.press.jhu.edu/press/books/titles/s02/s02mibe.htm.

Lecture Details

Location: E34-101/Edgerton Hall

About the Speaker

David A. Mindell PhD '96

Frances and David Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing
Chair, MIT150 Steering Committee MacVicar Faculty Fellow

David A. Mindell is founder and director of MIT's Laboratory for Automation, Robotics, and Society. His research interests include the social implications of automation and remote systems, deep ocean robotic archaeology, and the history of space exploration. His book, War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), won the Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology for the best book in the field accessible to a broad audience. He has also written Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); and Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight (MIT Press, 2008), which won the Emme Award for Astronautical Literature from the American Astronautical Society.

Mindell is also co-leading a 10-year collaborative project with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Greek Ministry of Culture to explore the deep Aegean sea for ancient and bronze-age shipwrecks using autonomous underwater vehicles. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.A. in Literature from Yale University in 1988. He earned a Ph.D. from MIT in 1996.