Richardson, George P., "Problems for the Future of System Dynamics", 1995
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The field of system dynamics first envisioned by Forrester in 1956 is approaching its fortieth anniversary. It has experienced two significant revolutions: changes in practice wrought by the development of iconographic software and the shift from modeling to improve a process to modeling for the purpose of improving people's mental models (Forrester 1992). Its third revolution---expanding the pool of practicing modelers far beyond the nucleus who have received university training ---has been underway since STELLA hit the schools in the late 1980s. A fourth revolution moving to the forefront qualitative modeling based on word-and-arrow archetypes---began quietly in the mid 1980s (e.g., Wolstenholme and Ciyle 1983) and exploded on the scene with the publication of The Fifth Discipline (Senge 1990). These resent and ongoing revolutions carry promise and potential pitfalls for the field.