Illusions of optimality

The design of complex, real world systems involves a search for ‘just the right’ combination of components that achieves the property known as ‘optimality’. Yet optimality in the conventional sense usually ignores a vital measure of system performance: stability. Often, at least for problems outside the classroom, it is far more important to design a system that is stable than one that exhibits, on paper, seemingly superior performance. This paper discusses the importance of system stability and, as well, proposes a novel method for the inclusion of stability into the design process.