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

SPECTRAL ANALYSIS 2)

A mathematical technique which permits the discovery of superposed frequencies in a curve.

As many different frequencies can be made to appear strictly by mathematical treatment, spectral analysis must be used with care.

K. BOULDING for instance, observes that economists have given scant attention to the underlying cybernetic regulations in economic processes and that: "Perhaps as a result of this failure to take a significant intellectual tool simply because (they) have not made it themselves, economists seem virtually to have lost interest in the theory of fluctuations and what work has been done in this has been of an extremely mechanical nature, using for instance, spectral analysis, which is an elegant way of detecting probably nonexistent cycles and throws no light on the real structures and processes which underlie fluctuations" (1972, p. 86)

The technique is also known as "Fourier analysis", "Frequency analysis", or "Harmonic analysis".

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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