4 ms·

This is some insanely cool history! I had no idea the Soviets had such a technical vision, that's actually pretty amazing. I've heard the term "cybernetics" but

This is some insanely cool history! I had no idea the Soviets had such a technical vision, that's actually pretty amazing. I've heard the term "cybernetics" but honestly just thought it was some movie-tech term, lol. It seems really weird that control theory is in EE departments considering it's sooo much more mathematical than most EE subdisciplines except signals processing. I remember a math professor of mine telling us about optimization techniques that control systems practitioners would know more about than applied mathematicians because they were developed specifically for the field, can't remember what the techniques were though ...

dreamcompiler 5y ago
Laplace transforms are one such trick. Given a linear differential equation describing your system, Laplace transforms let you solve it using basic algebra. Unfortunately this doesn't work on nonlinear systems.
- melony 5y ago
  The reduction of convolution to FFT is beautiful ;)
melony 5y ago
There is this excellent HN-recommended fiction called Red Plenty that dramatised the efforts on the other side of the Atlantic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8417882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8417882 > It seems really weird that control theory is in EE departments considering it's sooo much more mathematical than most EE subdisciplines except signals processing. I agree, apparently Bellman's reasoning for calling dynamic programming what it is was because he needed grant funding during the Cold War days and was advised to give his mathematical theories a more "interesting" name. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#History The generalised form of the Bellman Equation (co-formulated by Kalman of the Kalman filters fame) to control theory and EE is in some ways what the Maximum Likelihood function is to ML. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%E2%80%93Jacobi%E2%80%93Bellman_equation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%E2%80%93Jacobi%E2%8...
- SleekEagle 5y ago
  Looks really cool, added to my amazon cart. Thanks for the rec! That hilarious and sadly insightful. I remember thinking "what the hell is so 'dynamic' about this?" the first time I learned about dynamic programming. Although "memoitative programming" sounds pretty fancy too, lol

dreamcompiler 5y ago

Laplace transforms are one such trick. Given a linear differential equation describing your system, Laplace transforms let you solve it using basic algebra. Unfortunately this doesn't work on nonlinear systems.

melony 5y ago
The reduction of convolution to FFT is beautiful ;)

melony 5y ago

There is this excellent HN-recommended fiction called Red Plenty that dramatised the efforts on the other side of the Atlantic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8417882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8417882 > It seems really weird that control theory is in EE departments considering it's sooo much more mathematical than most EE subdisciplines except signals processing. I agree, apparently Bellman's reasoning for calling dynamic programming what it is was because he needed grant funding during the Cold War days and was advised to give his mathematical theories a more "interesting" name. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#History The generalised form of the Bellman Equation (co-formulated by Kalman of the Kalman filters fame) to control theory and EE is in some ways what the Maximum Likelihood function is to ML. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%E2%80%93Jacobi%E2%80%93Bellman_equation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%E2%80%93Jacobi%E2%8...

SleekEagle 5y ago
Looks really cool, added to my amazon cart. Thanks for the rec! That hilarious and sadly insightful. I remember thinking "what the hell is so 'dynamic' about this?" the first time I learned about dynamic programming. Although "memoitative programming" sounds pretty fancy too, lol