Franz Pichler, Prof. emeritus, was recently nominated as Honorary Member of the Bertalanffy Center. Educated as mathematician, in 1972 he was appointed Professor of Systems Theory at the Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria. He is known for applying systems theory to information technology. Two times he was Visiting Professor for General Systems Theory at the State University of New York in Binghamton where he acted as a substitute for George Klir. He participated in the BAC 2001 and has been one of the first to donate literature to the Center to be founded.
Franz Pichler, Study of the Kalman Algebraic Theory of Linear Systems in Australia, 2008 (photo: Franz Pichler)
I had the great fortune of taking my first class in Systems Science from Franz Pichler while he was a visiting professor at SUNY Binghamton School of Advanced Technology while George Klir was on sabatical. Franz instilled in me many core concepts of general systems theory. Franz is a very dedicated professor. I once noticed that each student received a unique homework assignment, and I wasked hime why. He replied that each student was unique and needed to learn different things. Of course Franz did this with no regard to the extra time it took him to devise and review the assignements. Many years later I participated in a number of systems and cybernetics conferences that Franz organized. At his home near the Johannes Kepler University of Linz he proudly showed me two books in his library: an original edition of Kepler, and a first edition of Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory.