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 LAW (Darwin - Lotka) 1)2)

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"Whenever it is necessary to transform and restore the greatest amount of energy at the fastest possible rate, 50 percent of it must go into the drain" (as stated by H.T. ODUM, 1971, p.31).

LOTKA himself wrote: "The discharge of a portion of the energy from the source into a sink is practised, not designedly because any useful purpose is served thereby, but unavoidedly because, in the case of all forms of heat engines, the second law of thermodynamics inexorably demands this payment of a tax to nature, as it were" (p.326).

Of course, biological organisms, and still more so human societies are "forms of heat engines"… and must pay the tax.

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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