Origin of Stability Analysis: \"On Governors\" by J.C. Maxwell [Historical Perspectives]

In 1868, James C. Maxwell published a paper, "On Governors," in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London [1]. This paper was overlooked for a long time because it was deemed by many to be difficult to comprehend. However, since Norbert Wiener drew attention to this paper in 1948, it has been recognized as the first significant paper on control theory; as a result, Maxwell has been regarded as the "father of control theory" [2]. The purpose of this article is to provide historical information on the origin of stability analysis in Maxwell's paper and to rederive his key equations using illustrative figures to improve the readability of that paper.

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