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

TWO-BODIES PROBLEM 2)

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The two-bodies problem is the characteristic one of classical mechanics. It concerns the deterministic interaction of two bodies (in the celestial mechanics sense, for instance) reciprocally related through a simple causal interdependence. Such a problem is easily solved through a differential equation which states how certain quantities and their rates of change are related.

This kind of solution is however based on an implicite postulate, i.e. that such relations are not significantly perturbed by other "bodies". This is the famous lemma "… et ceteris paribus", which is generally invalid in the case of complex systems, even if and when perturbations are slight, some approximate solution may be found.

H. POINCARÉ was first to understand the nature of these difficulties as early as 1892, in his study on the three-bodies problem

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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