Designing Antifragile Physical Systems

This paper examines how to make physical systems antifragile. Regarding “fragile” as the property of going from zero to negative easily, “robust” as that of not going negative easily, and “resilient” as that of going from negative to zero again, “antifragile” can be regarded as that of going from negative to positive through zero. Antifragility can be usually observed in nature and is now being examined to recognize in artificial systems. Among such examinations, this paper allows such systems to include physical modules and aims to “synthesize” new systems rather than “analyze” existing systems. Starting from organizing definitions and examples of antifragility, we analyzed and organized the terms used to describe antifragility in previous studies. Based on the analysis, this paper shows strategies to make physical systems antifragile.