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.

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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.

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CRITICALITY AND PERCOLATION 1)2)

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While criticality in a composite system corresponds to its tendency to turn back to a defined critical state which acts as an attractor (BAK et al., 1988, p.365), conversely percolation corresponds to its tendency to runaway behavior when a percolation threshold is reached.

This is made clear by P. BAK, C. TANG and K. WIESENFELD who write: "The system will become stable precisely at the point when the network of minimally stable clusters has been broken down to the level where the noise signal cannot be communicated through infinite distances" (Ibid, p. 367).

Most of the percolation processes tend to spend themselves quickly because they destroy their own conditions of permanence. For example, a population crash is the customary result of a population explosion. The composite system whose this population constitutes a class of elements tends to go back to its critical state, which is thus "self-organized". It is in this case that "the network… has been broken down to the level where the noise cannot be communicated through infinite distances" (Ibid).

Obviously the percolation threshold of the composite system is closely related to its critical state "in which minor events can cause chain reactions of many sizes" (P. BAK & K. CHEN, 1991, p.32). A percolation event is probably a runaway fluctuation iniciated in favorable conditions by a small one.

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

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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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