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Harold Stephen Black (April 14 1898 - December 11 1983) was an American electrical engineer, who revolutionized the field of applied electronics by inventing the negative feedback
Negative feedback

Negative feedback feeds part of a system's output, inverted, into the system's input; generally with the result that fluctuations are attenuated....
 amplifier in 1927. To some, his invention is considered the most important breakthrough of the twentieth century in the field of electronics
Electronics

Electronics refers to the flow of charge through nonmetal electrical conductor , whereas electrical refers to the flow of charge through metal electrical conductor....
, since it has a wide area of application. This is because all electronic devices (vacuum tubes, bipolar transistors and MOS transistors) invented by mankind are basically nonlinear devices.






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Harold Stephen Black (April 14 1898 - December 11 1983) was an American electrical engineer, who revolutionized the field of applied electronics by inventing the negative feedback
Negative feedback

Negative feedback feeds part of a system's output, inverted, into the system's input; generally with the result that fluctuations are attenuated....
 amplifier in 1927. To some, his invention is considered the most important breakthrough of the twentieth century in the field of electronics
Electronics

Electronics refers to the flow of charge through nonmetal electrical conductor , whereas electrical refers to the flow of charge through metal electrical conductor....
, since it has a wide area of application. This is because all electronic devices (vacuum tubes, bipolar transistors and MOS transistors) invented by mankind are basically nonlinear devices. It is the invention of negative feedback which makes highly linear amplifiers possible. Negative feedback basically works by sacrificing gain for higher linearity (or in other words, smaller distortion
Distortion

A distortion is the alteration of the original shape of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of information or representation. Distortion is usually unwanted....
 or smaller intermodulation
Intermodulation

Intermodulation or intermodulation distortion , or intermod for short, is the result of two or more Signal of different frequencies being Frequency mixer together, forming additional signals at frequencies that are not, in general, at harmonic frequencies of either....
). By sacrificing gain, it also has an additional effect of increasing the bandwidth of the amplifier. However, a negative feedback amplifier can be unstable such that it may oscillate. Once the stability problem is solved, the negative feedback amplifier is extremely useful in the field of electronics. Black published a famous paper "Stabilized feedback amplifiers" in 1934.

Biography

He was born in Leominster, Massachusetts
Leominster, Massachusetts

Leominster is a city in Worcester County, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 41,303 at the 2000 census. Leominster is located north of Worcester, Massachusetts and west of Boston, Massachusetts....
 in 1898. He went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a private university located in Worcester, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, in the United States....
 (WPI) for his first degree. Subsequently, he received the B.S.E.E. degree from WPI in 1921 and then joined Western Electric
Western Electric

Western Electric Company was an United States electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of American Telephone & Telegraph from 1881 to 1995....
, which was the manufacturing arm of AT&T. This was renamed Bell Labs
Bell Labs

Bell Laboratories is the research organization of Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company .Bell Laboratories has had its headquarters at Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, and it has research and development facilities throughout the world....
 (1925), where he was a member of technical staff until his retirement (1963).

According to Brittain, Black tried to write an autobiography with the tentative title "Before the ferry docked". However, he died in December 1983 at age 85 before he could finish it.

Work

Fifty years after his 1927 invention, he published an article in IEEE Spectrum regarding the historical background of his invention. He published a classical paper on negative feedback
Negative feedback

Negative feedback feeds part of a system's output, inverted, into the system's input; generally with the result that fluctuations are attenuated....
 amplifier in 1934, which has been re-printed in the Proceedings of IEEE two times in 1984 and 1999 Inside his 1934 classical paper "Stabilized feed-back amplifiers", he mentioned Harry Nyquist
Harry Nyquist

Harry Nyquist , was an important contributor to information theory....
's work on stability criterion because a negative feedback amplifier can be unstable and oscillate. Thus, with the help of Nyquist's theory, he managed to demonstrate a stable negative feedback amplifier which can be used in reality. Bernard Friedland wrote an introduction for the 1999 re-print in Proc. IEEE. James E. Brittain wrote about him in 1997. An obituary regarding Harold Black was published by IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control in 1984.

According to Black he got his inspiration to invent the negative feedback amplifier when he was travelling from New Jersey
New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, on the east by the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean, on the southwest by Delaware, and on the west by Pennsylvania....
 to New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
 by taking a ferry to cross the Hudson River
Hudson River

The Hudson River, called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk , the Great Mohegan by the Iroquois, or as the Lenape Native Americans called it in Unami, Muhheakantuck, is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York....
 in August 1927. At that time, Bell Laboratories headquarters were located in 463 West Street, Manhattan
Manhattan

Manhattan is one of the five borough of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.With a United States Census of 1,620,867 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles , Manhattan, coextensive with New York County, is the most population density county in the United States, w...
, New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
 instead of New Jersey and he lived in New Jersey such that he took the ferry every morning to go to work.

He has also worked on pulse code modulation. He wrote a book on "Modulation Theory" (Van Nostrand, 1953). He held many patents the most famous of which was US Patent 2,102,671 "Wave Translation System", which was issued to Bell Laboratories in 1937, covering the negative feedback amplifier.

Awards

  • National Inventors Hall of Fame
    National Inventors Hall of Fame

    The is the premier not-for-profit organization in America dedicated to recognizing, honoring and encouraging invention and creativity through the administration of its programs....
     inductee number 25, 1981
  • Robert H. Goddard
    Robert H. Goddard

    Robert Hutchings Goddard , U.S. professor of physics and scientist, was a pioneer of controlled, liquid rocket rocketry. He launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket on March 16, 1926....
     Award from WPI 1981
  • IEEE Lamme Medal 1958
  • D. Eng. degree (honorary) from WPI 1955
  • Research Corporation
    Research Corporation

    The Research Corporation is an organization in the United States devoted to the advancement of science, funding research projects in the physical sciences....
     Scientific Award 1952
  • John H. Potts Memorial Award
    Audio Engineering Society

    Established in 1948, the Audio Engineering Society draws its membership from amongst engineers, scientists, manufacturers and other organizations and individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry....
     of the Audio Engineering Society
    Audio Engineering Society

    Established in 1948, the Audio Engineering Society draws its membership from amongst engineers, scientists, manufacturers and other organizations and individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry....
  • John Price Wetherill Award of the Franklin Institute
    Franklin Institute

    Founded in honor of Benjamin Franklin, The Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest and premier centers of science education and development in the United States....
  • Certificate of Appreciation from the US War Department.
  • WPI gives away the annual Harold S. Black Scholarship (1992-)