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

FIELD 2)

A region of space endowed with a vectorial property corresponding to some specific action, f. ex. electrical, magnetic or gravitational.

This concept and model, elaborated by FARADAY and MAXWELL, replaced the model of a void space in which particles, charges or bodies attract or repel themselves through an instantaneous effect.

K.DE GREENE generally characterizes fields as follows:

" - All matter is inherently unstable and can be observed to decay.

" - A field in itself is continually fluctuating.

" - A field can cause an initially homogeneous system to develop new spatiotemporal structure (e.g. dissipative structures); the original system can become unstable everywhere in the face of infinitesimal fluctuations.

" - A single underlying force can, accordingly to the perspective of the observer, be manifested in apparently very different forms like the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces and perhaps eventually the gravitational force (to result in a grand unified field theory).

" - Attraction and repulsion are fundamental properties of forces.

" - There may be primary and residual forces.

" - Forces have characteristic spatial ranges and strengths which may be very limited or immense.

" - The basic constituents of matter interact via forces; a force binds matter together.

" - Particles convey forces; a field emanates from a particle and extends over some volume of space" (1994, p.11).

Remains to be seen how the concommitent concepts of space and force, not to speak of energy and time could be defined or described in a not too circular way.

Various fields may interact in a complex way. As a result, a field can be turbulent.

In the concept of field, any element creates its own field, whose strength decreases with distance: a field implies a gradient. This idea can be extended to systems influence on their environment.

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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