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

GUESS 2)

"A question which can be answered by "yes" or "no" (A. RAPOPORT, 1966, p.6).

This is a very useful notion for the evaluation of the quantity of information.

A. RAPOPORT explains: "It can be easily seen that a number from one to one hundred can always be guessed in seven guesses, while a number from one to one milion can always be guessed in twenty guesses. To do this one needs to make guesses in such a way as to eliminate one half of the remaining range. In the case of a milion, one starts with: "Is it less than 500.000 ? If yes, "Is it less than 250.000 ?". If no, then is it less than 375.000 ? ", etc. Since one million is less than 2, it will take at most 20 such dichotomies to determine the number" (p.6).

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: