Choice of Model and Method
The methods VMS uses to describe, investigate and compare SAP systems are closely related to some renormalization procedures. That makes it possible to carry out analyses and comparisons in differing structures and in varying scales, with the same precision.
Most mathematical processes are suitable for describing the system on a scale and for observing effects on other scales as disruptions. We can compare that approach with looking through a microscope – it shows details at a certain scale, for example, 1 micron. Markedly smaller dimensions cannot be viewed, and clearly larger structures are too massive to see.
Here’s an example from IT. If one is interested in effects that occur on a time-scale of one second (performance, response times), then fluctuations on a much shorter scale (milliseconds) are described as a mere murmur, or are completely ignored, and fluctuations on a greater scale appear almost frozen and stationary. When investigating and comparing SAP systems, on the other hand, it is important to look at all scales in the same way.
There are few mathematical models capable of describing complex systems with sufficient precision, in which differing scales play a fundamental role. In theoretical physics, one conventional group of methods, of which there are many variations and which is applied to different problems, are renormalization processes.
Some examples of the use of renormalization processes in other fields than IT are (this is not an exhaustive list, though):
Critical Phenomena and Phase Transitions. See e.g. Ken Wilson, Nobel Prize 1982
(http://www.nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1982/press.html)
Elementary Particles – see e.g. Gerardus t’ Hooft, Martinus Veltman, Nobel Prize 1999
(http://www.nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1999/press.html)
Disorder and Localization – see e.g. Franz Wegner, Max Planck-Medal 1986
(http://www.thphys.uni-heidelberg.de/home/info/preise_dir/wegner_MP.d.html)