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

CONTRACTION 2)

← Back

Quality of an adaptive nonlinear system that tends to forget its timely working conditions in an exponential way (J.J. SLOTINE, 2002, p. 19)

SLOTINE writes: "If such a system is submitted to a temporary perturbation it will go back to what it was just doing- at that given moment" He adds: "&at least for small perturbations, such robustness is in fact a necessary condition for any learning: a system whose responses would be fundamentally different at each trial would be incomprehensible" (Ibid)

Moreover: "&the contraction property is automatically maintained by any combination (parallel, serial or hierarchical; and some types of feedbacks) or dynamical recombination of subsystems, when these are also contractant" (Ibid)

Generally, contraction is a stabilization, or even self-stabilization device in nonlinear systems.

→ Le Chatelier (Principle of); Least action (Principle of); Regulation; Slaving Principle

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]

We thank the following partners for making the open access of this volume possible:

© 2020 BCSSS Contact/Imprint