OVERLOAD

Charles François (2004). OVERLOAD, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(2): 2454.

Collection	International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics
Year	2004
Vol. (num.)	2(2)
ID	◀ 2454 ▶
Object type	Methodology or model

Excessive density of pulses in a channel or set of communication channels.

Such a situation appears when an excesive number of transmitters and receptors have an access to the net and that there is no control device to restrict the possibilities to emit or receive messages in accordance with the maximal (global or local) capacity of the net.

Any overload leads to the disruption of parts of, or the whole net, frequently through chain reactions, (also typical of composite systems), which may well be irreversible.

The concept can be extended to any class of nets (electrical, informative, neural, social, etc…).