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Control theory, or more formally the theory of control systems, was the critical advance that brought for the Jet Age, and then the Space Age, as advances in the civilizational mastery of technology.
It was not that we simply tinkered our way to better, more-advanced machines. We discovered how to predict the best possible systems, across a wide variety of things in the physical world, or even in the space of social systems, it was thought. For example, business systems can be described and optimized from control theory principles---some the same ones used for physical systems.
The key to understanding control theory is thus appreciating that it is the search for principles of control and optimization which apply not just to one instance of a system, or one specific type of system, but which apply across multiple types of systems, including physical ones (such as engines) and non-physical ones (such as the business process of engineering itself).
As in all disciplines, is a specific vocabulary of control theory that one must learn. These include
Input
Output
Input signal
Output signal
They sound like something electronic, and indeed they often mean that. But they can refer to the flow of oil in an engine, or to a business process. They could refer to many different specific things in the world, physical and non-nphysical. For now it is best to just familiarize yourself with them.
Other words to become familiar with include:
Feedback
Feedback signal
Feedback control system
Control action
Actuating error signal
Like the ones above, these words might refer to any number of different types of systems. Just become familiar with the sight of them, so that when you see them, you know you are referencing something fundamental.
Advanced vocabulary for now includes
Closed-loop control systems
Open-loop control systems
The meanings of these last two ares not as intuitively accessible as the ones above it, but they are easily explained in terms of words more accessible in meaning.
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