BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

CORRELATION LENGTH 2)

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Maximal propagation distance of the effect of some disturbance within a net (after K. WILSON, 1989, p.92).

This maximal distance plays an important role in composite systems, as it commands the percolation phenomena.

WILSON observes that: "Regions separated by a distance superior to the correlation length are independent" (Ibid).

The correlation length is variable according to the state of the system. It is major in strongly connected systems and less so in weakly connected ones.

This is verified for example in the disappearance of magnetization at some distinct temperature (CURIE's temperature) (Ibid), or in the spontaneous extinction of a forest fire inside of the already burnt down zone or, again, in the extinction of a pandemy when the number of victims exceeds some defined limit.

WILSON points out that: "That which is most significant when the correlation length increases is that the small variations do not disappear when variations of a greater size expand: they merely become a finer structure, superposed to the larger scale structure" (Ibid).

As a result, systems of this type show a fractal structure and may manifest local behaviors at variance with the global one.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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