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Harold Stephen Black

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American electrical engineer (1898-1983)

United StatesScientistsLived 1898 to 1983 · aged 85
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Harold Stephen Black was an American electrical engineer, who revolutionized the field of applied electronics by inventing the negative feedback amplifier in 1927.

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Awards 3

1981National Inventors Hall of Fame
1957IEEE Lamme Medal
1941John Price Wetherill Medal

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About this person

Harold Stephen Black was an American electrical engineer, who revolutionized the field of applied electronics by inventing the negative feedback amplifier in 1927. To some, his invention is considered the most important breakthrough of the twentieth century in the field of electronics, since it has a wide area of application. This is because all electronic devices are inherently nonlinear, but they can be made substantially linear with the application of negative feedback. Negative feedback works by sacrificing gain for higher linearity. 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.

Country
United States
Category
Scientists
Type
Scientist
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1898 to 1983 · aged 85
Written about in
16 languages

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