The book is by a control engineer who used to work on various production processes. The title is a bit misleading--there is no single formula or formal mathematical derivation in the book. Instead, the book is built around the concept of a system where “system” is not confined to a particular discipline or field. As such, the book explores the integration between various systems and interactions between subsystems within a system. Such a general approach aims to reveal the principles that govern not only mechanical, electrical, electromechanical, and other systems, but are valid for other more human systems like social, political, and economic systems.

The book consists of ten chapters plus appendices. The chapters discuss various types of systems, starting from deterministic engineered systems (those designed by humans), and then going into political, biological, and economic systems. In both cases, the author provides details to reveal the fundamental behavioral patterns of the discussed systems. For example, the central role of various types of feedback is discussed and illustrated with many examples, both for engineered and biological systems. Questions about oscillation and instability in systems (also discussed without formal mathematical descriptions) are another example. Each chapter dealing with a particular type of system starts with a brief history review, which is good motivation for the reader and provides background context.

The second part of the book deals with the problems of optimization and control. The goals here are (1) to reveal in a simple nonmathematical way the challenges of optimizing a system that has multiple constraints and various goals, and (2) to discuss optimization as a process of finding the optimal state or values in the context of a particular system. The optimization and control topics are preceded by modeling and simulation, where the author discusses the importance of modeling and simulation in order to understand system behavior. This part of the book illustrates various types of models such as mental, conceptual, and interactive.

The book also discusses discrete events and procedural functions, all without the burden of mathematics. There are also discussions of modeling and simulations of procedural functions. The text finishes with nine appendices. The most useful one is Appendix 4 because of its practical value. I must stress that the book has plenty of examples from various sources, but no formal derivations. That may encourage the reader to look further in order to “detail” the general knowledge obtained from the text. The book is easy to read; it is fun, but has little value for readers who want to gain a deeper or specific understanding of a system--engineered, biological, and so on. As such, the book is a good starting text for some control engineers since it demonstrates how to model and simulate a system, how to incorporate discrete events and sequential steps in system dynamics, and at the end how to seek optimal system behavior.

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