Welcome to Linotype, an online, independent academic publication at the intersection of robotics, classical and continuum mechanics, controls, and stochastic processes. You'll notice that Linotype is hardly a conventional publication. It is two things at the same time: a digital research archive and a curated technical reference.
It is better to explain the second one first. Firstly, Linotype is a technical reference because the knowledge of a technical field deserves to be centralized. I have searched for the same definition, rederived the same theorem, asked the same fundamental question so many times. The process of strengthening your knowledge is valuable, but it's exhausting to have to dig for an hour to find that one derivation. For research to be disciplined, the fundamental theorems, derivations, and algorithms that power it need to be organized and clearly explained. And research is a fundamentally collaborative process. The growing number of open-access scientific and educational resources is growing at a rate like never before in this century thanks to the Internet, and it's accelerating research and spreading its influence wide in a way that we didn't previously think was possible. For that reason, Linotype provides an open-access, citable reference for a large body of theoretical work.
At the same time, and without diminishing its nature as a technical reference, Linotype is at its heart a research archive. Research is a chaotic, messy, beautiful process that deserves structure and direction. This is a place for me to organize my ideas and demonstrate novel research before it's ready for the format of formal publication... or even a preprint! Because Linotype is completely open-access, it's also an excellent way for me to structure information and solicit feedback from collaborators and peers... because, like I said before, research is a fundamentally collaborative process.
That said, the best way to understand Linotype is to experience it. Please, have a look around!
All content on Linotype, unless otherwise indicated, is made available under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. In simple terms, you may share, adapt, and redistribute the content for any non-commercial purpose, as long as you provide appropriate attribution. You may read more about the license on the Creative Commons website:
In the later half of the 19th century, the information revolution took a turn. Until 1886, the only printing technology available to humankind was the manual printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg. Skilled typesetters had to painstakingly arrange every single letter in the printing press. Printing was fast, but typesetting was agonizingly slow.
In 1886, all that changed. An engineer and clockmaker named Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German immigrant to the United States, invented the linotype machine. The linotype machine was, in a sense, the very first word processor. It was a large mechanical device with a keyboard, by which an operator would input letters. After completing each line, the machine would cast an entire "line o' type" at once by pouring molten metal into a prepared mold. This greatly accelerated the typesetting process, increasing the rate at which written material could be disseminated. Major newspapers continued to use the technology until the 1970s, when solid-state computing machines became accessible (Colcough).
This online publication, Linotype, is dedicated to the linotype machine and its incredible contribution to the accessibility of information. In the 21st century, modern computing technology makes information even more accessible than ever before. I created Linotype to make my technical work and research as accessible as possible.
Great question! My name is Joseph Hobbs and I'm an engineer and independent researcher. I studied aerospace engineering at MIT (class of 2025). In my first years of study, I couldn't decide what was most interesting to me, because there was so much to learn! Now, after four years of the firehose, I've begun to see the common threads that tie together all of our modern engineering infrastructure, and how those threads point towards the next advances in engineering and the natural sciences.
My academic interests are primarily focused on the intersection between applied mathematics and the practical engineering disciplines. The last centuries have seen incredible advances in mathematics, including the maturity of probability theory, information theory, linear algebra, statistical physics, and the formalization of groups, graphs, and geometry in theoretical computer science. In more recent decades, we've seen the wild success of dynamic programming, modern theories of control, and convex optimization.
For me, this common thread of interests manifests itself in analytical and numerical methods for electrical and electronics engineering, from Maxwell's equations to VLSI; continuum mechanics, including subsonic aerodynamics and the mechanics of materials and structures; the mechanics of rigid bodies, especially as applied to aircraft, spacecraft, and contact-rich robotic systems; and combinations of deep and classical methods for perception and control.
I have an immense respect for the countless inspired mathematicians, computer scientists, and engineers who are building the future of generative models for language and vision. That said, I also believe that academic and technical writing is a fundamentally human process that should be for humans, by humans. I hold myself to the highest standard of quality and accountability in my writing. Therefore, it is my guarantee that no content on Linotype, written or otherwise, is created, copyedited, or proofread by generative AI.
J. Colcough. "The Linotype: The Machine that Revolutionized Mobile Type". The Library of Congress Blogs. https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2022/06/the-linotype-the-machine-that-revolutionized-movable-type/ (accessed April 3, 2026)