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

SCALE (Mesoscopic) 2)4)5)

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(From the greek "mesos"= middle)

R. IRION writes: "Objects ranging from a few nanometers to a tenth of a micrometer show special properties that do not occur on microscopic or macroscopic scales. At this size threshold, adding more particles often makes the material not just bigger, but entirely different. Groups of hundreds to thousands of particles -dumb, inanimate matter- suddenly begin to organize themselves into patterns that make them seem capable of responding to their surroundings"(2001, p. 33)

The mesoscopic scale is shaped through a set of stabilized and repetitive interactions that become functional. Another angle on this phenomenonis expressed by CSANYI's concept of the "zero system" emerging out of an autogenetic assembly of precursor components

The mesoscopically self-organizing system can itself be recognized at different scales. It is obviously active in all cases of self-organizing human systems, in history and in the present time. (J. WARFIELD, to be published)

M. ROUKES makes the following comment: "At the meso scale, matter's properties result of a combination of classical physical laws and of quantum mechanics"(2001)

Many quanta effects are self-compensating,or somehow constrained at large scale. But the trend towards miniaturization and nano technology is bringing important techniques (as for example in computer hardware) closer and closer to a critical limit where quanta effects cannot any more be ignored. This is now a very basic issue in applied technology as related to scale.

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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