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

ENERGY (Downgrading) 1)

As noted by J.de ROSNAY, at first sight, "there seems to exist a contradiction between the 1st. and the 2nd. Principle (of thermodynamics): the first one says that heat and energy are two magnitudes of the same kind; the other that they are not, since energy downgrades irreversibly into an "inferior", less "noble ", or of "lesser quality" energy: heat. The riddle is solved by the statistical theory. Heat is really energy. More precisely, it is a kinetic energy, resulting from the individual velocities of the molecules of a gas or from atomic vibration in solids. but, under its "heat" form, this energy is reduced to a maximally disordered state in which each individual movement becomes soon or later neutralized by the law of great numbers.

"Thus potential energy is ordered energy and heat is disordered energy"…

"In the first case the global movement of the molecules (in a gas for example) is apt to produce some work (move a piston). In the other case, there is an inefficient agitation "on the spot" and in every direction at the same time: the energy is there, but cannot be used" (1975, p.137).

In this last form it is sometimes called "anergy".

Heat is thus dispersed energy, reduced to molecular agitation. Everyday experience proves that any use of energy finally produces heat, without exception. Entropy is a measure of this downgrading.

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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