Open system (systems theory)

An open regarding any category system is a system that at the interfaces to its environment has an exchange balance, which can be non-zero in this category.

Physics

In physics, open, closed and completed (or ' isolated ') systems are used.

As an open system is defined, which can exchange both energy and matter (or particles ) with its environment. An example of an open thermodynamic system is an open cooking pot which exchanges both energy in the form of heat and matter in the form of steam with its environment.

The exact calculation of open systems is therefore not possible, but only by models approximated.

Information Technology

In information technology is an "open system " means an operational environment, interoperability, portability and extensibility ensures through open interfaces and specifications.

Biology

Living systems are open, as living beings import to their receipt negentropy and shall be consistent with the environment in constant mass and energy exchange. The openness, however, is limited here more or less quantitatively and qualitatively.

From an information-theoretic point of view living systems increase their redundancy, the ISO / IEC DIS 2382-16 ( information theory ) can be described as the distance between the actual entropy of a system from its maximum entropy by exporting entropy ( by importing or negative entropy ).

Sociology

Social systems in terms of the sociological systems theory of Niklas Luhmann are open. As is generally open systems also applies to social systems that openness does not necessarily lead to the reduction of entropy in these systems, but openness is only one of the conditions for the possibility of reducing the entropy in the system. Luhmann defines social systems since the transfer of the concept of autopoiesis on his theory in the early 1980s ( in the reception as Luhmann " autopoietic turn ' considered ) no more than " open "( ie, in direct exchange with the environment ), but as " autopoietic closed" or " operationally closed". The perception of the environment through a system is therefore always selective, according to Luhmann. A system can not change its specific mode of perception of the environment, without losing its specific identity.

As in the case of biological systems, the export of entropy here means so that the redundancy is increased in the social system, ie, the structure of elements that are not necessarily, but possibly needed. Social and biological systems require redundancy at least in the degree to which they experience contingency. For people contingency is the openness and uncertainty of human life experiences.

Swell

• Thermodynamics
• System
• Biology
• Sociological systems theory