Hermann Schmidt

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Hermann Schmidt (1894-1968) was a German research scientist and patent official who developed the study of regulatory systems, independently from Norbert Wiener.

In 1930 he got a job at the Main Patent Office in Berlin. In this role, he was responsible for evaluating the originality of new technologies that were often difficult to distinguish. He realized that a new language of comparison—an Allgemeine Regelungskunde or general regulatory theory—was necessary to standardize how inventions would be categorized by function and application. He lectured on control theory between 1935 and 1940 and, in 1941, he published a memorandum calling for such a systematic approach. Schmidt contended that negative feedback had a universal character that could apply in a variety of mechanical and biological contexts.

Works[edit]

  • "Regelungstechnik: Die technische Aufgabe und ihre wirtschaftliche, sozialpolitische und kulturpolitische Auswirkung" [Control engineering: the technical task and its economic, socio-political and cultural implications], VDI-Zeitschrift 85:4 (1941), Düsseldorf: VDI, pp 81-88; repr. as Die Regelungstechnik als technisches und biologisches Grundproblem: Vorträge, geh. auf d. Sitzg d. Wissenschaftl. Beirates d. VDI am 17. Okt. 1940 in Berlin, Düsseldorf: VDI, 1941, 24 pp. (German). A lecture given at the conference Regulation as a basic technical and biological problem organised by the control engineering committee of the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI), October 1940.
  • Denkschrift zur Gründung eines Institut für Regelungstechnik, 1941; 2nd ed., Quickborn in Holstein: Schnelle, 1961. (German). Privately published memorandum.
  • "Die Entwicklung der Technik als Phase der Wandlung des Menschen", VDI-Zeitschrift 96:5 (1954), Düsseldorf: VDI, pp 118-122. (German)
  • Die antropologische Bedeutung der Kybernetik: Reproduktion dreier Texte aus den Jahren 1941, 1953 und 1954, Quickborn in Holstein: Schnelle, 1965. (German)
  • "Sprache und Mathematik", Grundlagenstudien aus Kybernetik und Geisteswissenschaften, 28:1 (1987), pp 3-10. (German)

Literature[edit]

  • Frank Dittmann, "Zur Entwicklung der 'Allgemeinen Regelungskunde' in Deutschland". Hermann Schmidt und die 'Denkschrift zur Gründung eines Institutes für Regelungstechnik'", Wiss. Zeitschrift TU Dresden 44:6 (1995), pp 88-94. (German)
  • Werner Kriesel, H. Rohr, A. Koch, Geschichte und Zukunft der Meß- und Automatisierungstechnik, Düsseldorf: VDI, 1995. (German)
  • Frank Dittmann, Jérôme Segal, "Hermann Schmidt (1894-1968) et la théorie générale de la régulation: une cybernétique allemande en 1940?", Annals of Science, Vol. 54, 1997, pp 547-565. (French)
  • Frank Dittmann, "Aspects of the Early History of Cybernetics in Germany", Trans. Newcomen Soc. 71 (1999-2000), pp 143-154.
  • Karl Heinz Fasol, "Hermann Schmidt, Naturwissenschaftler und Philosoph – Pionier der Allgemeinen Regelkreislehre in Deutschland", Automatisierungstechnik München 49:3 (2001), pp 138-144. (German)
  • Karl Heinz Fasol, "Hermann Schmidt, pioneer in control and cybernetics", IEEE Control Systems Magazine (2002), pp 24-28.
  • Karl Heinz Fasol, "Hermann Schmidt", in Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB), Bd. 23, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 2007, pp 191-192. (German)
  • Christopher Charles Bissell, "Hermann Schmidt and German 'proto-cybernetics'", Information, Communication & Society 14:1 (2011), pp 156-171.
  • Schmidt's biography in IEEE Global History Network

Links[edit]