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Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman investigate an array of instruments from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century that seem at first to be marginal to science--magnetic clocks that were said to operate by the movements of sunflower seeds, magic lanterns, ocular harpsichords (machines that played different colored lights in harmonious mixtures), Aeolian harps (a form of wind chime), and other instruments of "natural magic" designed to produce wondrous effects. By looking at these and the first recording instruments, the stereoscope, and speaking machines, the authors show that "scientific instruments" first made their appearance as devices used to evoke wonder in the beholder, as in...
Traces the consolidation of a specialty, as the various feedback control devices used in the 1930s for aircraft and ships, the telephone system, and analogue computers, were brought together during World War II to form what is now known as the classical frequency response methods of analysis and design, and applied to non-linear, sampled-data, and stochastic systems. Follows the field's development through the post-war addition of the root locus method to the introduction of the state-space methods of modern control. Distributed by INSPEC. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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