Ludwig von Bertalanffy

Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (September_19, 1901, Vienna, Austria - June_12, 1972, New York, USA) was a biologist who was a founder of general systems theory.

Related Topics:
September_19 - 1901 - Vienna - Austria - June_12 - 1972 - New York - USA - Biologist - General systems theory

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An Austrian citizen, he did much work in the United States. However, he experienced discrimination at the behest of American academe in that he declined to portray himself as a victimised refugee from Nazism and returned to work in Europe.

Related Topics:
Austria - United States - Refugee - Nazism

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The individual growth model published by von Bertanlanffy in 1934 is widely used in biological models and exists in a number of permutations. A more general version was proposed by F. J. Richards in 1959. The growth model is a differential equation in the tradition of earlier demographic models, also used to model surplus production (biomasses rather than number of individuals or length of individuals).

Related Topics:
Model - 1934 - F. J. Richards - 1959 - Demographic - Surplus production

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In its simplest version the so-called von Bertalanffy growth equation is expressed as a differential equation of length (L) over time (t):

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L'(t) = k left( L_infty - L(t) ight)

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when k is the individual growth rate and L_infty the maximum individual length.

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