Portal:Systems science
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| Complex systems approach |
Systems are sets of entities, physical or abstract, comprising a whole where each component interacts with or is related to at least one other component and they all serve a common objective. The scientific research field which is engaged in the interdisciplinary study of universal system-based properties of the world is general system theory, systems science and recently systemics. They investigate the abstract properties of the matter and mind, their organization, searching concepts and principles which are independent of the specific domain, independent of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scales of existence.
Systems science can be viewed as ... "a metalanguage of concepts and models for interdisciplinary use, still now evolving and far from being stabilized. This is the result of a slow process of accretion through inclusion and interconnection of many notions, which came and are still coming from very different disciplines. The process started more than a century ago, but has gathered momentum since 1948 through the pioneering work of Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Heinz von Foerster and W. Ross Ashby, among many others" (Charles François, 1999).
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the other celestial objects gravitationally bound to it: the eight planets, their 165 known moons, three dwarf planets (Ceres, Eris, and Pluto) and their four known moons, and billions of small bodies. This last category includes asteroids, Kuiper belt objects, comets, meteoroids, and interplanetary dust.
In broad terms, the charted regions of the Solar System consist of the Sun, four terrestrial inner planets, an asteroid belt composed of small rocky bodies, four gas giant outer planets, and a second belt, called the Kuiper belt, composed of icy objects. Beyond the Kuiper belt lies the scattered disc, the heliopause, and ultimately the hypothetical Oort cloud.
The Lorenz attractor is a 3-dimensional structure corresponding to the long-term behavior of a chaotic flow, noted for its butterfly shape. The map shows how the state of a dynamical system (the three variables of a three-dimensional system) evolves over time in a complex, non-repeating pattern.
The attractor itself, and the equations from which it is derived, were introduced by Edward Lorenz in 1963, who derived it from the simplified equations of convection rolls arising in the equations of the atmosphere.
Joseph Francis Shea (September 5, 1926–February 14, 1999) was an aerospace engineer and NASA manager. As head of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, Shea played a key role in shaping the course of the Apollo program, helping to lead NASA to the decision in favor of lunar orbit rendezvous and supporting "all up" testing of the Saturn V rocket.
Shea's speciality was systems engineering: a new type of engineering in the 1950s that focused on the management and integration of large-scale projects, turning the work of engineers and contractors into one functioning whole. He played a significant role in the Titan I project; as George Mueller writes, "he contributed a considerable amount of engineering innovation and project management skill and was directly responsible for the successful development of this pioneering guidance system...."
- ...that systems art (picture) is an art movement from the 1960s influenced by systems theory, which reflects on natural systems, social systems and social signs of the art world itself?
- ...that a successful experimental system must be stable and reproducible enough for scientists to make sense of the system's behavior, but unpredictable enough that it can produce useful results?
- ... that the anthropologist, linguist, and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson most noted writings are Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and Mind and Nature (1980).
- ... that a multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents, which can be used to solve problems which are impossible for monolithic system to solve.
- ... that the American systems scientist John Nelson Warfield found systems science to consist of a hierarchy of sciences.
- Beginning at the base, with a science of description,
- continuing vertically with a science of design,
- then a science of complexity,
- and next a science of action, called "Interactive management".
- ...that British Columbians will get a second chance to vote on replacing the winner-takes-all election system with a single-transferable-vote system?
- ... that self-organization is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source.
- Systems: Astronomical | Biological | Classification | Conceptual | Dynamical | Economic | Information | Legal | Management | Physical | Political | Social | Software | Technology | Writing
- Systems science: Systems biology | Chaos theory | Cybernetics | Systems engineering | Systems theory
- Systems scientists: Chaos theorists | Complex systems scientists | Cyberneticists | Systems engineers
- Related fields: History of Ideas | History of Science | History of Technology | Philosophy of Science
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