SERVOMECHANISMS, 14 WORKS IN 15 VOLUMES

i. Ahrendt, William Robert (1919-1961) and Taplin, John Ferguson (1913-2008). Automatic feedback control. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1951, original green cloth, [T&W A47]ii. Brown, Gordon Stanley (1907-1996) and Campbell, Donald Pierce. Principles of servomechanisms. Dynamics and synthesis of closed-loop control systems. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1948, second printing, original cloth, [T&W B272]iii. Grechaninov, Alekseĭ Vasilýevich (born 1858). Sur la stabilité du mouvement de la machine réglée par un régulateur à action directe. Cracow. Adolphe Darré, 1897, presentation copy inscribed by the author, original wrappers, folding table, wrappers torn, (bought from Dailey, 1989), [T&W G84]iv. Lauer, Henri, Robert Lesnick, and Leslie E. Matson. Servomechanism Fundamentals. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947, second impression, cloth, [T&W L36]v. MacColl, Le Roy Archibald (1896-1967). Fundamental theory of servomechanisms. New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1945, original blue cloth, [T&W M4]vi. Maxwell, James Clerk (1831-1879). "On governors" [in:] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, vol. 16, pp.270-283. Taylor & Francis, 1868, original cloth, preserved in cloth folding box, (bought from Biblion, 1985), [T&W M70; Origins of Cyberspace 337], spine worn and fadedvii. Porter, Arthur (1910-2010). An Introduction to Servo-Mechanisms. Methuen, 1950, diagrams, original red cloth, [T&W P103]viii. Smith, Ed Sinclair (1897-1960). Automatic control engineering. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1944, original cloth, [T&W S149]ix. James, Hubert Maxwell (1908-1986), Nichols, Nathaniel B. (1914-1997) and Phillips, Ralph Saul (1913-1998). Theory of Servomechanisms. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947, [T&W J9]x. Bruns, Robert A.; Saunders, Robert M. Analysis of feedback control systems, Servomechanisms and Automatic Regulators. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955, original cloth, [T&W B281]xi. Tsien, Hsue Shen‏ ‎(1911-2009‏). Engineering cybernetics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954, original cloth, dust-jacket [T&W T54]xii. Van Valkenburgh, Nooger & Neville, Inc. Basic Synchros and Servomechanisms. New York: John F. Rider, 1955, original papers covers, 2 volumes, [T&W V2]xiii. Young, [Christopher] Alwyne Jack (1912-1978). An Introduction to Process Control System Design. Longmans, Green & Co., 1955, original cloth, dust-jacket, [T&W Y5]xiv. Callender, A., Hartree, Douglas Rayner (1897-1958), and Porter, A. "Time-lag in a control system." [from:] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, series A, vol. 235, no. 756, 21 July 1936. London: Royal Society, 1936, original wrappers, [T&W C12]

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The sixth item by the mathematician and scientist James Clerk Maxwell is a seminal paper in the field of control systems and servomechanisms. It covers the theory of a class of governors that increase their resistance as the speed of a mechanical machine increases. Maxwell does not discuss the actual construction of these devices but sets out a series of differential equations that model the responses of the system. "The first significant paper on feed-back mechanisms is an article on governors which was published by Clerk Maxwell in 1868" (Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, p.9)