Abstract
The word system has a broad modern definition. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a system as “a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole.” For the engineer, a system consists of a combination of elements which, acting together, perform a specific task. An input to a system causes the system to exhibit a response which is observed as changes in the system output. All of the systems we discuss in this book are causal: the input, or cause, results in the output, or effect. Additionally, causality requires that the output depends only on current and previous input values. Future inputs do not affect the current output.
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Notes
- 1.
To provide a sense of scale, the diameter of a human hair is approximately 100 μm.
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Davies, M.A., Schmitz, T.L. (2015). Introduction. In: System Dynamics for Mechanical Engineers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9293-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9293-1_1
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