System

A system is quite a broad term that means different things depending on the field of interest it refers to.

For example in biology a 'system' means one thing but a 'system' in computer engineering is another thing entirely.

Biology and computing may be worlds apart e.g. frog v.s. supercomputer. But systems do share some common features

1. They have a boundary. Each system has an 'edge', things inside the boundary make up the system.

2. A system is made of more than one part. For example a computer is made up of many smaller units such as storage, processing and input-output devices.

3. They have definite inputs and outputs. Whatever goes into them is processed in some way to cause an output. For example, computers have physical inputs such as mouse and keyboard, within the system is software to process that input to produce an output. (a frog also has definite inputs and outputs but that is beyond the scope of this site!)

4. Parts of the system are inter-connected. Point 2 said that a system is made up of more than one part. This is true, but they also need to interact with one another if they are deemed to be part of the system.

2020-10