Abstract
When James Watt introduced the governor as a feedback-mechanism that would regulate and control the operation of steam-engines, he established or consolidated a paradigm or exemplar for safety-design, for the liberal idea of political checks and balances, for the epistemological notion of self-correcting methodologies, a paradigm or archetype of intelligent systems, and the patron-saint of cybernetics.
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See Diagram 1 and Diagram 2, p.91.
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Nordmann, A. (1989). Fusion and Fission, Governors and Elevators. In: Byrne, E.F., Pitt, J.C. (eds) Technological Transformation. Philosophy and Technology, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2597-7_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2597-7_6
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