012 Biotic Explorers Wiener references in his book to a publication by the British physicist James C. Maxwell from the year 1868:
„A Governor is a part of a machine by means of which the velocity of the machine is kept nearly uniform, notwithstanding variations in the driving-power or the resistance.“2
FIG. 4: J. C. Maxwell
While Maxwell is talking about the governor, a centrifugal feedback valve for controlling the velocity of an engine, Wiener points out that the term *to govern* is firmly tied to cybernetics and the ancient Greek word 'cybernetes': steersman or governor. However, even before Wiener or Maxwell thought about using the term, French physicist André-Marie Ampère already suggested the following in 1834:
„The future science of government should be called ‘cybernetics’ (‘la cybernetique’).“3
With all this back referencing, one might ask: Was there always some unspoken truth out there, that some bright people re-discover from time to time or is there some inherent and natural truth to this discipline? Cybernetics revolves around insights on self-regulating systems, structures, boundaries and the interaction of goals, predictions, actions, feedback, and response in these systems. During its years of establishing as an independent science, it was mainly driven by military research, such as calculating trajectory lines of rockets to deflect, use of radar antennae, maneuvering simple robots or designing electrical circuits. At its core, the term stands for having a goal and means to achieve that goal. Knowing if a goal is in reach or not, a cybernetical system needs