International Institute for General Systems Studies, Inc.

中文版（国际一般系统研究所所长，Dr. Jeffrey  Forrest 对泛系的评论）

2003.03公布于潜科学网站

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 Dr. Jeffrey Yi-Lin Forrest

President and Director

23 Kings Lane, Grove City, PA 16127, USA

http://www.iigss.net                                           (phone): 724-738-2510                                       e-mail: Jeffrey.forrest@sru.edu

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February 18, 2003

 To Whom It May Concern:

 This morning when I came to the office, I received an email message from Professor Xuemou Wu asking me to write some comments on his work in the area of pansystems.  I feel honored to do so for such a well established and well resepcted scholar of China. 

 To see where I am from, let me start with a brief introduction about myself.  By training, I am a topologist (mathematician).  Under supervisions of several well-known topologists, about 20 years ago I started to branch out my research work to a much wider range of scientific activities.  Now looking back to the scientific path and works I have gone through and accomplished over the years, I have to say that my academic success and most of my scientific achievements were the results established on the bases of the works of some of the greatest minds of our time.  These greatest minds include George Klir, M.D. Mesanovic, Y. Takahare, L.A. Zadeh, and of course, Professor Xuemou Wu.  To be more specific, during the year of 1989, my colleagues and I pooled over $2,000 together to acquire published works of Professor Wu from American Mathematical Society.  Because of so many great scholars such as Professor Xuemou Wu leading the way, I have accomplished a great deal in the area of systems research and applications.  As of today, other than having published over 13 monographs and edited volumes with over 70 pieces of work cited by Science Citation Index.  I am now serving on the editorial boards of seven international journals and a book series, published by Taylor and Francis, one of the most prestigious publishers in the scientific history.

 Enough about myself, let me now turn our attention to Professor Wu’s work especially pansystems, established and developed by Professor Wu and his followers.  The scientific achievements of Professor Wu have been wide-ranging covering almost all corners of the modern science.  Other then many official recognitions he had received in China or from abroad, Professor Wu’s work has been highly commended by many world-class scholars such as Klir Zadeh, Takahara, etc.  Due to the huge quantity of Professor Wu’s work, it is impossible for me to comment on all of his scientific endeavors.  So, instead I will just focus on a few pieces of his work in this letter.  It is my hope that from my comments on these few pieces of his work, we can all see and feel the high quality of his works not mentioned here.

 The very first piece of Professor Wu’s work I studied in my career is his splendid book named “ Approximation Transformation Theory and the Panstems Concepts in Mathematics”.  In that book, he unified all the main results in approximation and related theories established by great mathematicians from around the world, introduced his now well-known mechanics of electro-magnetic media.  At the end, he introduced the concept of pansystems and relevant theorems.  It was in this book that scholars from outside China started to see how many seemingly unrelated areas of mathematics could be unified and brought up to a higher level and a more general and powerful theory, named pansystems was born.  This book and its contents have surely inspired me and many colleagues of mine to pursue further in-depth studies in systems research and applications.

 The second piece of work by Professor Wu that I would like to comment on is his relevant papers published along the well-established theory named “Optimization Theory”.  In the 1950’s, R. Bellman introduced his most well-known and widely applied principle of optimization.  It was later named after the founder as Bellman’s Principle of Optimality.  However, with the advancement of pansystems studies, it was Professor Wu Xuemou and his followers who discovered the fact that this principle is not generally true.  On the basis of this discovery, Professor Wu (together with a student of his) established a series of necessary and/or sufficient conditions under which such a principle of optimization would hold true.  This work alone would place pansystems above many branches of the modern science.  In my book, “General Systems Theory:  A Mathematical Approach”, published by Kluwer Academic and Plenum Publishers in 1999, I devoted one whole chapter to Professor Wu’s work along this line, and have received very good comments from readers all over the world.

 The third piece of work published by Professor Wu that I would like to comment on is that in the direction of chaos.  As we all know that studies in chaos and nonlinear science have been one hot research topic in the last two decades or so.  After studying one of his papers along that line, I was so motivated and inspired by the insights provided by Professor Wu that I published a series of papers in the said direction.  These papers, together with some other readings, eventually led to the publication of my book “Beyond Nonstructural Quantitative Analysis” (joint with a colleague) published by World Scientific in 2002.  Professor M. Bounias, an academician of French Academy of Sciences, and many others, had highly recommended this book and commented the book as such a great book that they “had not read in the long time”.

 I hope that my comments above have accomplished their goal: Works by Professor Wu Xuemou have been absolutely the world class.  If not for historical reasons in China and not for the barrier of language in which most of Professor Wu’s works were published, Professor Xuemou Wu and his works, especially pansystems, would have been known to all people from around the globe.

 Should further deliberation be needed, I could be reached at jeffrey.forrest@sru.edu.

 Sincerely,

Jeffrey Forrest

President of the IIGSS

February 18, 2003

 敬启者：

 今天早上当我走进办公室，我接到吴学谋教授发来的email ，要求我写一些他在泛系方面工作的评论意见。为这卓有建树备受尊敬的中国学者做这事，我感到是一种荣幸。

 首先让我简短地介绍一下自己。从专业出身说，我是一位拓扑学家（数学家）。先后曾经在几位著名的拓扑学家指导下工作，大约20年前我开始了我现在非常宽广领域的科学活动。现在回顾我的科学道路和多年做过的许多工作，我不得不说，我的学涯的成功，包括绝大多数科学成就，均是在当代许多最伟大的智者的工作的基础上获得的。这些大智者包括George Klir, M.D. Mesanovic, Y. Takahara, L.A. Zadeh, 当然也包括吴学谋教授。更具体地说，在1989年，我和同事共同筹集了2000美圆查询搜集美国数学会刊布的吴学谋的论著，因为象吴学谋教授等等那么多大学者已经在引导我正在从事的系统研究和应用，而我现在出版了13部专著，编辑过许多学报卷宗，Science Citation Index入录我70多处工作，我现在也是7个国际学报编委和一个丛书编委（由Taylor and Francis出版，是科学史上最有权威的出版机构）。

 现在再来论及吴教授的工作，特别是由他和他的追随者创立和发展的泛系论。吴教授的科学成就广及几乎当代科学所有角落。除开中国国内外许多官方正式的认可外，吴教授的工作得到许多世界级的学者诸如Klir，Zadeh, Takahara 等等高度的称赞。 由于吴教授工作巨大的容量，我不可能评论他的科学工作的所有方面。我现在只着眼于他的很少一部分的工作以示一般，从此我们也可以看到他的其他工作的高质水平。

 在我学涯进程中，我首先学习了吴教授的光辉的论著《逼近转化论与数学中的泛系概念》。在这书中，他统一了逼近论的主要的结果和由许多国际大数学家建立的有关的理论和电磁介质力学研究，而最后，他介绍了泛系概念和有关的许多定理。这书使得中国外的学者能够看到许多似乎不相关联的数学领域能够统一，并且能够提升成一种更高水平、更加普适而强大的理论——泛系理论：一种新理论创生了。这书及其内容目录曾经感悟我和我许多同仁，并鼓动我们去追索系统研究与应用更为深沉的种种工作。

 涉及吴教授的工作，我想评及的第二个方面是关于众所周知的“优化理论”。在50年代，R. Bellman引入了广为人们引用的优化原则，这就是后来人们叫他是Bellman 最优原理创建人的根由。然而，吴学谋教授及其追随者，在泛系的成功研究中发现了这原则并不是总是对的。在这发现的基础上，吴教授（和他的学生）建立了一系列的关于优化的必要或者充分的条件。仅仅这一工作也可以显示泛系在现代科学许多分支之中独异之处。我的论著《一般系统论：一种数学研究》（ “General Systems Theory:  A Mathematical Approach”）由Kluwer Academic and Plenum Publishers出版社在1999年出版。 在书中我拨了整整一章书论述吴教授有关的工作，而且得到遍布世界各地读者的非常好的评价。

 第三点我要论及的吴教授的研究是关于混沌（chaos）方向的。正如人们知道的，混沌和非线性科学是近20年学术界的热门话题。沿着他在这方向的一篇文章，受到激发感悟，以至后来在这一方向上我发表了一系列论文。这些论文以及有关资料最终使我（与人合作）在World Scientific于2002年出版了论著《超越非结构性定量分析》（ “Beyond Nonstructural Quantitative Analysis” ）。 得到法国科学院院士M. Bounias 教授等等的高度好评“had not read in the long time”。

 我希望我的上述评论已经到达了它们的目标：吴学谋教授的工作绝对是世界级的。假如不是由于中国历史的原因，假如不是吴学谋教授的工作由于语言的屏障的故缘，吴学谋教授和他的工作， 特别是泛系理论，早该闻名全球而广为人知。

 假如有什么进一步的意见需要商酌，请和本人联系： jeffrey.forrest@sru.edu.

 Sincerely,

 Jeffrey Forrest