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

PHASE TRANSITIONS (Nonequilibrium) 2)4)5)

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Instabilities that appear in a system driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium.

H. HAKEN states: "The nonequilibrium phase transitions of synergetic systems are much more varied that the phase transitions of systems in thermal equilibrium, and include oscillations, spatial structures and chaos" (1983, p.315). HAKEN also observes: "Destabilization of the former state in phase transitions is associated with intense fluctuations phenomena" (1984 – as retranslated for the Spanish translation from German!).

R. LEFEVER and I. PRIGOGINE illustrate this process using the BÉNARD instability "… a striking example of instability giving rise to spontaneous self-organization" (1986, p.2) and "chemical oscillations … to occur (through) auto- or cross-catalytic reactions" (Ibid, p.3). (As for example the BELOUSOV-ZHABOTINSKY reaction).

Still more interesting: "Non-equilibrium transitions have also been described in the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum" (p.4). This suggest that these transitions are important in all kinds of biological and social systems.

HAKEN went as far as to write: "The phase transitions theory allows for the identification, in the mechanisms of revolutions, of many of the effects observed in the natural sciences" (1984 – retranslated).

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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