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.

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EQUILIBRIUM (Static) 1)2)

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"A time independent state of a closed system in which all macroscopic quantities are invariable and all microscopic processes discontinued" (I.V. BLAUBERG, V.N. SADOVSKY & E.G. YUDIN, 1977, p.47).

These authors write: "According to the second law of thermodynamics, each closed system finally reaches a time- independent state of equilibrium with maximum entropy and minimal free energy" (Ibid).

It should be better semantics to call "isolated system" this purely abstract system to which the 2nd. law of thermodynamics applies in a rigorous way.

This type of static equilibrium is quite different from the dynamic equilibrium, proper to steady states in active dynamic systems.

Static equilibrium is necessary a final state in any system, in accordance with the 2d Law of thermodynamics. As stated by A. KATCHALSKY, such final states are "memoryless", i.e. do not conserve any trace of their former functionality or organization (1971, p.60-61). They normally imply the destruction of the system and the dispersion of its components.

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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