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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INTEGRATE AND FIRE MECHANISM 2)4)

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A natural mechanism that leads to the synchronization of two oscillators.

Ian STEWART writes: "… the oscillations are created by a mechanism known as integrate and fire. In such a setting some quantity builds up (that is, the phase increases) until it reaches a threshold. Crossing this value triggers a sudden action – fire ( or in the case of fireflies, flash) – after which the quantity resets to zero and starts to accumulate again…

"Such oscillators are said to be "coupled", meaning that one affects the state of the others. The classic example is the observation made by the great Dutch physicist Christian HUYGHENS (1629-1695) that pendulum clocks on the same shelf affect one another through the vibrations of the shelf" (I. STEWART, 1999, p.86).

As the elements in the coupled oscillators interact in an ordered and cyclical sequential way, this phenomenon is thus a very basic social 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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