这篇文章是在我今天读到的一篇关于世界上第一个系统工程系的创始人A. Wayne Wymore的怀念文章后结合自己以前的问题，做得一个 初步的回答。

首先叙述一下我自己的问题，我记得去年暑假的时候，我就盘算着我读研的话是读哪个方向的研究生（主要是为以后自己的发展方向定个思路，其实后来知道硕士研究生没必要分得太细，硕士还是为以后研究打基础的），当时就想着如果能找一个正处于萌芽期而且以后会有大发展的行业（研究方向），那么就有非常大的希望一辈子都处于上升期（当然这个方向要自己感兴趣，且有基础），因为我觉得大多现在繁荣的行业都会在我退休前衰落的，至少不会像现在这样繁荣。

首先读到的是哈佛大学终身教授何毓琦的博文：Control is dead?(http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=344686),这篇文章是建立在On Education and Research(13)-replies to requests and questions(1)（http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=45898）基础上的，下面分别简要介绍一下这两篇文章的主要思想：

首先是，关于教育和研究的那篇文章。在这篇文章里何老首先介绍了一般科学领域发展的三个历史阶段（下文红色标记）：

Most scientific fields and topics go through historical cycles. It starts with a breakthrough or new demands from the real world, e.g., the aerospace and landing-on-the-moon race during the late fifties and early sixties for the control and system field. There were flurry of activities, discoveries, and applications. This is the first generation. From this point on, the real world are more or less satisfied but continues to support additional research since the subject has yield fruitful results and the real world needs trained workers. The theorists take over, refine and deepen the results, and erect a framework and foundation for the topic. Textbooks were written, faculties were hired , more students educated, and the field continues to bloom. In control and systems this approximately covers the 70s and 80s. However, sooner or later, the field reaches maturity and the third generation stage. At this point, jobs become scarce for new entrants because both the academic and industrial area are already well staffed with trained people not yet retired. Whatever problems that remain are either very hard or irrelevant/unimportant to the real world. People are either doing work amounting to “gilding the lily” or, trying to find new application areas or busily looking for new topics to invent. There are little cross pollination between the theory and the applied domain. Everything is in steady state. This is where control and system field are now. When a new breakthrough happens or new demand arises, the cycle will repeat.

通俗地讲就是，首先有基础科学的突破或真实世界有新的需求，然后有理论家开始研究，著书，最后很多老师和学生涌入开始传授和学习知识，该领域进入成熟期。而当到了最后一个阶段的时候这个领域就已经dead了，不过何老也提出了几个解决方法或说是对在这个阶段进入这个领域的人的建议：一，可以努力寻找二次突破，进入新的循环；二，如果不能继续搞研究了，那就去传授知识吧，毕竟还是有人需要这些知识的；三，请工业界或学术界的专家提发展方向的建议。以上三点分散于以上说的两篇博文中。

今天读到了王飞跃所长（中科院自动化所）的怀念Wymore的文章，里面Wymore的关于世界上第一个系统工程是怎么创建的回忆里的一句话触发了我的思考，I had just begun to appreciate the possibilities for more complex systems because computers were certain to become available with much faster performance, more memory and cheaper cost.这句话是Wymore对计算机以后发展趋势的展望。读到这儿，我一个一直藏于心底的结终于解开——原来他们早就认识到（1958年）计算机的局限性及计算机功能的强大性（当然他文章其他部分的内容也暗示了这点，下文标红）。也就是，当时计算机正处于萌芽期（而系统工程还没有），而且有非常大的新的需求，既处于何老说的第一个阶段。难怪Wymore后来成绩斐然:)

总结起来，人年轻时最幸运的是什么？我今天做个简单的回答（待斟酌）：人最幸运的就是，能在年轻的时候找到一个正处于萌芽期而又有巨大发展潜力的行业从事一辈子，而这个行业又是自己擅长的（需要的基本功），这样就可以开心地工作一辈子，因为它一直是处于上升期的。

下文是Wymore关于世界上第一个系统工程创立的简短而深邃的回忆：

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I was alone in my office completely absorbed in what, I don’t now recollect. I was busy all the time: I gave lectures to individuals and groups on how the computer could be used by research faculty in diverse fields; I wrote computer programs; I developed and taught courses in programming, numerical analysis, statistics and operations research; I wrote proposals to upgrade the computer equipment.I must have been engaged in one of these activities when Dr. Thomas L. Martin, then Dean of Engineering, came into my office, sat down and immediately began talking:

“I have just returned from an exciting meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education where I heard a paper on the new discipline of systems engineering. It is no longer sufficient for engineers merely to design boxes such as computers with the expectation that they would become components of larger, more complex systems. That is wasteful because frequently the box component is a bad fit in the system and has to be redesigned or worse, can lead to system failure. We must learn how to design large-scale, complex systems from the top down so that the specification for each component is derivable from the requirements for the overall system. We must also take a much larger view of systems. We must design the man-machine interfaces and even the system-society interfaces. Systems engineers must be trained for the design of large-scale, complex, man-machine-social systems.” 

This quotation is vastly abridged, I am sure, but it communicates the tone and some of the principal points as I recollect them. I was not paying too much attention, still absorbed in what I had been doing, and besides, when I heard the words “American Society for Engineering Education,” I am sure that my eyes began to glaze over. Then the Dean, undeterred by my lack of attention or perhaps so absorbed in his monologue that he didn’t notice, continued: 

“The next big development in engineering education will be the establishment of systems engineering as an engineering discipline. The University of Arizona is going to have a Department of Systems Engineering and I want you to develop and head up the Department.” 

Upon hearing that last sentence, I came fully to attention wishing I had listened more closely to his previous words. I sometimes characterize my intellectual life from that day to the present as trying to recall and to make sense of what the Dean had been trying to tell me that day in 1958. 

I was captivated by the grandeur of the vision invoked.  I had just begun to appreciate the possibilities for more complex systems because computers were certain to become available with much faster performance, more memory and cheaper cost. I had glimpsed some of the interesting, even mathematical problems in the structure of computer programs but had yet to explore the possibilities for research in what was to become computer science.  I had already come to realize it wasn’t the computer or the programs or the user, it was the system.

From:

Systems Movement:  Autobiographical Retrospectives

Contributions to the Mathematical Foundations of

Systems Science and Systems Engineering 

A. Wayne Wymore

Professor Emeritus of Systems and Industrial Engineering

The University of Arizona

4301 North Camino Kino

Tucson AZ 85718

wayne@sie.arizona.edu, http://www.sie.arizona.edu/faculty/wymore.html

王飞跃所长原文：http://bbs.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=2374&do=blog&id=419601

写于2011年4月19日