TERM (Short-, Medium-, Long-)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 3522 ▶ |
| Object type | General information |
Different time scales in processes, rhythms and phenomena.
What short-, medium- and long- means must be clarified in each case. Geological cycles are obviously at a different scale than living beings, or meteorological events.
The really interesting aspects of different, but imbricated time scales are as follows:
- Time regularities can be observed in most processes at different scales. In living systems, circadian rhythms for example, are clearly distinct from seasonal ones, while both are inscribed within the long-term scale of life as a whole.
- Short-, medium- and long-term rhythms are more or less interconnected, because they correspond to interconnected phenomena. Population cycles of different species in predators-preys relationships may combine to induce a long-term global cycle. This also seems to be the case for the different economic and business cycles.
- Long-term cycles offer a limited predictive capability as to the progress of the medium and short term cycles. This seems to be related to chaotic determinism.
The whole subject deserves more intensive study.
See for example “Fractal scaling”, “Frequency analysis”, “Kondratiev cycle” and “Weierstrass equation”.