Helmsmen and Heroes: Control Theory as a Key to Past and Future

Why is Wimbledon top billing on summer TV? Why do we admire sportsmen and artists rather than salesmen and lawyers? Why are we attracted to strong political leaders, where flexible responsive leadership is demonstrably more effective? Drawing on control theory, this book looks at the range of questions that can be examined via this theory. This is a layperson's introduction to control theory, explaining how control affects politics and economics as well as the more obvious fields of science and technology. Gosling begins with an exposition of the main elements of control theory. these are: negative feedback (stimulus and response in opposite directions eg a central-heating system), positive feedback (stimulus and response in the same direction eg an arms race), open-loop system (process with all parameters decided at outset eg throwing a dart), closed-loop system (process with feedback control eg an autopilot). Gosling's main theme is that humans have a fatal attraction towards open-loop sytems: we idolize people who are good at open-loop control, such as artists, sportsmen or inventors. Gosling ends with a futurology of the end of the Industrial Revolution, as predicted by control processes. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…