The interest of humanity in control of microworld processes has a rich history. We already mentioned briefly the history of Maxwell Demon starting from the end of the 19th century. In the 20th century numerous control problems in chemical reactors and nuclear reactors have been studied. Control goals in conventional applications are usually formulated as regulation of process intensity in cases when the normal functioning of the process is in principle possible even without control. Challenging problems, however, are to change the natural course of the process, to intervene the motion of single atoms and molecules, to break existing chemical bonds and to create new ones [91, 114, 367]. In the 20th century implementation of these goals has become a matter of serious discussion owing to the invention of such fine instruments as lasers.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCybernetical Physics
Subtitle of host publicationFrom Control of Chaos to Quantum Control
Pages161-171
Number of pages11
DOIs
StatePublished - 2007

Publication series

NameUnderstanding Complex Systems
Volume2007
ISSN (Print)1860-0832

    Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Computational Mechanics
  • Artificial Intelligence

ID: 87382142