Electrical power failure: reflections on compatible descriptions of human and physical systems

Relations between highly complex human and physical systems are of increasing concern today. Many of these are exemplified by problems associated with the failure of electrical power transmission systems which are not being solved within the current paradigm. Traditional mathematical forms are unable to express the hierarchical relations characterizing the physical and human systems. It is suggested that <I>Q</I>-analysis provides a natural and unconstrained language for describing both the technical and the management structures, and that many traditional problems are easily translated into more appropriate statements rooted in real data sets.