Calculus and the Birth of Control Theory

Automatic gadgets were already known in Greco-Latin antiquity, some of the first examples being water clocks or hourglasses described by Vitruvius and attributed to Ctesibius (Alexandria 3rd century BC). In the 1st century of our era, partly based on the knowledge of Ctesibius, Hero of Alexandria describes a great variety of automata and mechanisms based on what today we call feedback [1].