This article is the last in Scientific American series on Automatic Control. It covers Information theory and processing. It has some great tidbits such as primitive tagging system for books by Vanevar Bush that used binary coded descriptors on microfilm. Also I’d have to say the author deserves to gloat over this quote: “It is almost certain that “bit” will become common parlance in the field of information, as “horsepower” is in the motor field.”
- Part 1 – Automatic Control
- Part 2 – Feedback
- Part 3 – The Role of the Computer
- Part 4 – Automatic Machine Tools
- Part 5 – Information
.Information
The surprising discovery that it is subject to the same statistical treatment as heat facilitates its storage and handling in automatic control systems
by Gilbert W. King
THE “lifeblood” of automatic control is information. To receive and act on information is the essential function of every control system, from the simplest to the most complex. It follows that to understand and apply automatic control successfully we must understand the nature of information itself. This is not as simple as it may seem. Information, and the communication of it, is a rather subtle affair, and we are only beginning to approach an exact understanding of its elusive attributes.
