Library Concept
Governor
A device that automatically regulates a machine's speed by feeding its output back as a correction to its input — the historical root of the word cybernetics.
A device that automatically regulates a machine’s operating speed, using the machine’s own output as the signal that corrects it — the earliest widely cited example of engineered feedback control. James Watt adapted the centrifugal (flyball) governor to steam engines from 1788 onward, using a spinning pair of weights whose rise and fall with engine speed throttles the steam supply to hold speed steady. Norbert Wiener took the Greek word for “governor” or “steersman,” kybernetes, as the root of “cybernetics” in 1948, making the governor’s self-correcting loop the namesake of the whole field.