28-08-2017, 12:33 PM
In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a device, system, or object that can be seen in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its inner workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). Almost anything could be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human brain.
To analyze something, such as an open system, with a typical "black box approach", only the behavior of the stimulus / response will be taken into account to infer the (unknown) frame. The typical representation of this black box system is a box-centered data flow diagram.
The opposite of a black box is a system in which internal components or logic are available for inspection, which is more commonly known as a white box (sometimes also known as "transparent box" or "glass box") .
The modern term "black box" seems to have entered the English language around 1945. In electronic circuit theory the process of network synthesis of transfer functions, which led to electronic circuits considered as "black boxes "Its harbors, go back to Wilhelm Cauer, who published his ideas in their most developed form in 1941. Although Cauer did not use the term, others who followed him described the method as a black box analysis. Vitold Belevitch puts the concept of black boxes even earlier by attributing the explicit use of the two-port networks as black boxes to Franz Breisig in 1921 and argues that the two-terminal components were implicitly treated as black boxes before that.
In cybernetics, a complete treatment was given by Ross Ashby in 1956. A black box was described by Norbert Wiener in 1961 as an unknown system that was to be identified using system identification techniques. He saw the first step in self-organization as being able to copy the output behavior of a black box. Many other engineers, scientists and epistemologists, like Mario Bunge, used and perfected the theory of the black box in the sixties.
To analyze something, such as an open system, with a typical "black box approach", only the behavior of the stimulus / response will be taken into account to infer the (unknown) frame. The typical representation of this black box system is a box-centered data flow diagram.
The opposite of a black box is a system in which internal components or logic are available for inspection, which is more commonly known as a white box (sometimes also known as "transparent box" or "glass box") .
The modern term "black box" seems to have entered the English language around 1945. In electronic circuit theory the process of network synthesis of transfer functions, which led to electronic circuits considered as "black boxes "Its harbors, go back to Wilhelm Cauer, who published his ideas in their most developed form in 1941. Although Cauer did not use the term, others who followed him described the method as a black box analysis. Vitold Belevitch puts the concept of black boxes even earlier by attributing the explicit use of the two-port networks as black boxes to Franz Breisig in 1921 and argues that the two-terminal components were implicitly treated as black boxes before that.
In cybernetics, a complete treatment was given by Ross Ashby in 1956. A black box was described by Norbert Wiener in 1961 as an unknown system that was to be identified using system identification techniques. He saw the first step in self-organization as being able to copy the output behavior of a black box. Many other engineers, scientists and epistemologists, like Mario Bunge, used and perfected the theory of the black box in the sixties.