BLACK, HAROLD STEPHEN

born April 14, 1898, Leominster, Mass., U.S. died Dec. 11, 1983, Summit, N.J. American electrical engineer who discovered and developed the negative-feedback principle, in which amplification output is fed back into the input, thus producing nearly distortionless and steady amplification. The principle has found widespread applications in electronics. In 1921 Black joined the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, working first with the Western Electric Company and from 1925 with Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. While working on a means of reducing amplifier distortion, he devised the negative-feedback amplifier. The principle of negative feedback was essential for radar and other control mechanisms as well as for servomechanisms. The principle has also been applied to the study of physiology and psychology to understand better the mechanisms of the senses and response.