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

SYSTEMS DYNAMICS (Short history of) 1)

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S. MARTINEZ offers the following synthetic sketch of Systems dynamics history: "In the 1950s, J.W. FORRESTER, a systems engineer at MIT…, was commissioned by the U.S. company Sprague Electric to study the extreme oscillations of their sales and establish a means to correct them. From previous experience, FORRESTER knew that the essence of the problem stemmed from the oscillations present in systems that contain inertia effects or delays and reverse effects, or feedback loops as basic structural characteristics.

"In 1961, FORRESTER published his report on Industrial Dynamics (M.I.T. Press) which marked the beginning of "S.D. technique", based on the study and simulation of the behavior of social systems. In 1968, World Dynamics (Wright-Allen Press) was published, which served as the basis for the MEADOWS and MEADOWS Report to the Rome Club, a re search project that was published under the title The Limits of Growth (Potomac Associates, 1972). It could be said that this report and the extensive controversy it provoked, were actually what popularized Systems Dynamics all over the world.

"At present, Systems Dynamics (S.D.) or Simulation Dynamics – as it is sometimes called – is a widespread technique in general use for the modeling and study of the behavior of any type of system that contains delay or feedback characteristics" (1993, p.384).

It should be added that the cultural background, as well as some methodological assumptions and even the real goals of the S.D. based World models have been heavily criticized from various sides, specially in South America. (The Argentine FUNDACION BARILOCHE report).

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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