The number of variables defines the dimension of both the space and the system. The coordinates then correspond to particular assignments of values to each variable. A state is often represented by a point in a geometrical space (phase space), with axes corresponding to the variables. The values taken by a system's variables at an instant of time describe the system's state. Systems possess properties that are represented by variables or observables: quantities that have a range of possible values such as the number of people in a population, the blood pressure of an individual, the length of time between consultations, and so on. The behaviour of a chaotic system appears random, but is generated by simple, nonārandom, deterministic processes: the complexity is in the dynamical evolution (the way the system changes over time driven by numerous iterations of some very simple rule), rather than the system itself. 23, 24, 37 On the other hand, a complicated piece of medical technology, such as a positron emission tomography scanner, will obviously not survive removal of a major component. A large healthcare system will be robust to the removal of a single nurse because the rest of the members of the system will adapt to compensate-however, adding more nurses does not necessarily make the system more efficient. Complex systems can survive the removal of parts by adapting to the change to be robust, other systems must build redundancy into the system (eg by containing multiple copies of a part). Complicated systems can have very many parts too, but they play specific functional roles and are guided by very simple rules. Simple systems have very few parts that behave according to very simple laws. Chaotic systems can have very few interacting subunits, but they interact in such a way as to produce very intricate dynamics. Complex systems are highly composite ones, built up from very large numbers of mutually interacting subunits (that are often composites themselves) whose repeated interactions result in rich, collective behaviour that feeds back into the behaviour of the individual parts. System is simply the name given to an object studied in some field and might be abstract or concrete elementary or composite linear or nonlinear simple or complicated complex or chaotic.
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