Jay Wright Forrester
Jay Wright Forrester | |
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Institutions | MIT Sloan School of Management (1956) |
Jay Wright Forrester (July 14, 1918 – November 16, 2016) was an American
During
Later, Forrester was a professor at the
Early life and education
Forrester was born on a farm near Anselmo, Nebraska, where "his early interest in electricity was spurred, perhaps, by the fact that the ranch had none. While in high school, he built a wind-driven, 12-volt electrical system using old car parts—it gave the ranch its first electric power."[7]
Forrester received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1939 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He went on to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked with servomechanism pioneer Gordon S. Brown and gained his master’s in 1945 with a thesis on 'Hydraulic Servomechanism Developments'.[2] In 1949 he was inducted into Eta Kappa Nu (ΗΚΝ) the Electrical & Computer Engineering Honor Society.[citation needed]
Career
Whirlwind projects
During the late 1940s and early 50s, Forrester continued research in electrical and computer engineering at MIT, heading the
Forrester effect
In 1956, Forrester moved to the
System dynamics
Forrester was the founder of
Forrester's 1971 paper 'Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems' argued that the use of computerized system models to inform social policy was superior to simple debate, both in generating insight into the root causes of problems and in understanding the likely effects of proposed solutions. He characterized normal debate and discussion as being dominated by inexact mental models:
The mental model is fuzzy. It is incomplete. It is imprecisely stated. Furthermore, within one individual, a mental model changes with time and even during the flow of a single conversation. The human mind assembles a few relationships to fit the context of a discussion. As the subject shifts so does the model. When only a single topic is being discussed, each participant in a conversation employs a different mental model to interpret the subject. Fundamental assumptions differ but are never brought into the open. Goals are different and are left unstated. It is little wonder that compromise takes so long. And it is not surprising that consensus leads to laws and programs that fail in their objectives or produce new difficulties greater than those that have been relieved.[13]
The paper summarized the results of a previous study on the system dynamics governing the economies of urban centers, which showed "how industry, housing, and people interact with each other as a city grows and decays." The study's findings, presented more fully in Forrester's 1969 book Urban Dynamics, suggested that the root cause of depressed economic conditions was a shortage of job opportunities relative to the population level, and that the most popular solutions proposed at the time (e.g. increasing low-income housing availability, or reducing real estate taxes) counter-intuitively would worsen the situation worse by increasing this relative shortage. The paper further argued that measures to reduce the shortage -- such as converting land use from housing to industry, or increasing real estate taxes to spur property redevelopment -- would be similarly counter-effective.[14]
Club of Rome
'Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems' also sketched a model of world dynamics that correlated population, food production, industrial development, pollution, availability of natural resources, and quality of life, and attempted future projections of those values under various assumptions. Forrester presented this model more fully in his 1971 book World Dynamics, notable for serving as the initial basis for the World3 model used by Donella and Dennis Meadows in their popular 1972 book The Limits to Growth.
Forrester met Aurelio Peccei, a founder of the Club of Rome in 1970.[15] He later met with the Club of Rome to discuss issues surrounding global sustainability; the book World Dynamics followed. World Dynamics took on modeling the complex interactions of the world economy, population and ecology, which was controversial (see also Donella Meadows and The Limits to Growth). It was the start of the field of global modeling.[8] Forrester continued working in applications of system dynamics and promoting its use in education.
Awards
In 1972, Forrester received the
Publications
Forrester wrote several books, including:
- 1961. Industrial dynamics. Waltham, MA: Pegasus Communications.
- 1968. Principles of Systems, 2nd ed. Pegasus Communications.
- 1969. Urban Dynamics. Pegasus Communications.
- 1971. World Dynamics. Wright-Allen Press.
- 1975. Collected Papers of Jay W. Forrester. Pegasus Communications.
His articles and papers include:
- 1958. 'Industrial Dynamics – A Major Breakthrough for Decision Makers', Harvard Business Review, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 37–66.
- 1968, 'Market Growth as Influenced by Capital Investment', Industrial Management Review, Vol. IX, No. 2, Winter 1968.
- 1971, 'Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems', Theory and Decision, Vol. 2, December 1971, pp.109-140. Also available online.
- 1989, 'The Beginning of System Dynamics'. Banquet Talk at the international meeting of the System Dynamics Society, Stuttgart, Germany, July 13, l989. MIT System Dynamics Group Memo D.
- 1992, 'System Dynamics and Learner-Centered-Learning in Kindergarten through 12th Grade Education.'
- 1993, 'System Dynamics and the Lessons of 35 Years', in Kenyon B. Greene (ed.) A Systems-Based Approach to Policymaking, New York: Springer, pp. 199–240.
- 1996, 'System Dynamics and K–12 Teachers: a lecture at the University of Virginia School of Education'.
- 1998, 'Designing the Future'. Lecture at Universidad de Sevilla, December 15, 1998.
- 1999, 'System Dynamics: the Foundation Under Systems Thinking'. Cambridge, MA: Sloan School of Management.
- 2016, 'Learning through System Dynamics as preparation for the 21st Century', System Dynamics Review, Vol. 32, pp.187-203.
See also
References
- ^ Jay W. Forrester 1995 Fellow Archived 2015-01-03 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b David Lane; John Sterman (2019). "Jay W. Forrester 1918–2016". Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering. Vol. 22. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
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ignored (help) - ^ ISBN 9781447174752.
- S2CID 25146240.
- ^ Luis E. Romero (November 18, 2016). "A Genius Has Left Us -- His Name Was Jay W. Forrester". forbes.com. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
- ^ System Dynamics Review (5 Oct 2022) Fons et origo: reflections on the 60th anniversary of Industrial Dynamics
- ^ Biography Jay Forrester. on thocp.net, 2005. Accessed August 18, 2013
- ^ a b c Katie Hafner, "Jay W. Forrester Dies at 98; a Pioneer in Computer Models", The New York Times, November 17, 2016.
- ^ Multicoordinate digital information storage device, US patent 2736880
- ISBN 9780140154399.
- ^ Lee; Padmanabhan; Zhang (15 April 1997). "The Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains". MIT Sloan Review of Management (Spring 1997). Retrieved 24 November 2015.
- ISBN 9780262524872.
- ^ Jay Wright Forrester (1971) 'Behavior of Social Systems', Theory and Decision, Vol. 2, December 1971, pp.109-140. ]
- ^ Jay Wright Forrester (1969) Urban Dynamics. Pegasus Communications documentation of a computer model
- ^ Ugo Bardi Jay Wright Forrester (1918–2016): His Contribution to the Concept of Overshoot in Socioeconomic Systems
- ^ IEEE Medal of Honor recipients of IEEE's highest award, established 1917.
- ^ "Computer Pioneer Award". Archived from the original on 2018-07-09. Retrieved 2006-05-03.
- ^ CHM. "Jay W. Forrester— CHM Fellow Award Winner". Archived from the original on April 3, 2015. Retrieved March 30, 2015."Jay W. Forrester | Computer History Museum". Archived from the original on 2015-01-03. Retrieved 2015-01-05.
External links
- Selected papers by Forrester.
- Jay Wright Forrester at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Biography of Jay W. Forrester from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
- "The many careers of Jay Forrester," MIT Technology Review, June 23, 2015
- Jay Wright Forrester Papers, MC 439, box X. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts.