death_place death_date influenced birth_place influences fields birth_date known_for article_title name alma_mater
buffalo , new york , usa 12 june 1972 russell checkland , c. west churchman , jay wright forrester , l. ervin lászló , james grier miller , anatol rapoport ackoff , kenneth e. boulding , peter atzgersdorf near vienna , austria-hungary rudolf , otto neurath , moritz schlick carnap , gustav theodor fechner , nicolai hartmann biology and systems theory 19 september 1901 general system theory ludwig von bertalanffy
 ludwig von bertalanffy university of vienna
ludwig von bertalanffy

karl ludwig von bertalanffy -lrb- september 19 , 1901 -- june 12 , 1972 -rrb- was an austrian-born biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory -lrb- gst -rrb- .
gst is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components , applicable to biology , cybernetics , and other fields .
bertalanffy proposed that the classical laws of thermodynamics applied to closed systems , but not necessarily to `` open systems , '' such as living things .
his mathematical model of an organism 's growth over time , published in 1934 , is still in use today .
von bertalanffy grew up in austria and subsequently worked in vienna , london , canada and the usa .
