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

REVERSIBILITY 1)3)

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The character of a process whose direction of change can be reversed by a suitable alteration, however small, of the (generalized) force applied to produce the change. (Adapted from A. LOTKA, 1956, p.23)

Reversibility is a purely abstract concept. The direction of change can be reversed… but only through an irreversible movement from a former to a later state.

In real processes, any action causes some dissipation of energy, however small, i.e. "its conversion into heat at the temperature of the surroundings" (Ibid). Thus the 2d law of thermodynamics is the impassable barrier against reversibility, as stated for instance by F. HEYLIGHEN: "Reversibility is equivalent to the nonincrease of entropy (i.e. the non-decrease of information)" (1989, p.369).

Moreover, any process of change, even a reversal one, supposes a lag in time, which also is in accordance with the 2d law.

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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