ABSTRACT

On the other hand, a system might comprise a multiman spacecraft served by a gigantic logistic support operation of people, equipment, ships, aircraft, launch and landing facilities, or, for that matter it might be a complex of electronic and mechanical components operating with little or nothing in the way of human control. For the mathematician, indeed, a system can be the ultimate abstraction and take the form, for example, of a group of interactive differential equations — and so on as each discipline defines its own.Since the components of a system are interactive then, by definition, each properly functioning system has a certain equilibrium state —and of course it has a function. The equilibrium state is determined by the interactions that occur among the components; the effectiveness of the function is determined by the stability of the equilibrium.The fact that the components of a system are dynamic and mutually interactive determines the corollary that no component should be considered in isolation from the system in which it exists, since as soon as a component is isolated both the component and the system change.