Stability and Change

• Things may change slowly or rapidly.
• Explanations of stability and change in natural or designed systems can be constructed by examining the changes over time and forces at different scales.
• Small changes in one part of a system might cause large changes in another part.
• Explanations of stability and change in natural or designed systems can be constructed by examining the changes over time and processes at different scales, including the atomic scale.
• Stability might be disturbed either by sudden events or gradual changes that accumulate over time.
• Much of science deals with constructing explanations of how things change and how they remain stable.
• Systems can be designed for greater or lesser stability.
• Feedback (negative or positive) can stabilize or destabilize a system.
• Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible.