SOLITON
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 3111 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Methodology or model |
A solitary wave, able to persist in a well-defined shape, for a long distance and an appreciable span of time.
According to C. REBBI, a soliton does not fades away because it is submittend to a topological closure (1979).
This relates this phenomenon to synergetics and shows that it must be under the control of an order parameter.
Accordingly, solitons are forms of spontaneous self-organization.
F. David PEAT explains: “… solitons are local phenomena that are constantly sustained through a global activity; they are born, persist as patterns in space and time, and then die back into their ground… In the case of solitons it has been possible to analyse a system into relatively independent parts, within the context'' of the whole… It is only when analysis and reduction become absolute and the solitons are taken for truly independent elements of reality that confusion sets in” (1987, p.75).
In short, solitons are forms of higher level organization emerging from lower level interactive phenomena.
Solitons have been discovered in many nonlinear systems (in tidal waves, in vibrating atoms, in electrical circuits, in nerve impulses, etc.) According to F. David PEAT: “It has even been suggested that elementary particles are not in fact the fundamental building blocks of matter but are the solitons of an underlying nonlinear quantum field” (1987, p.74).
Many more uses of the soliton model could probably be found, even possibly in economics and in social sciences.