In engineering practice, complexity is often used loosely—interchangeably with size, difficulty, or sophistication. But that imprecision comes at a cost: we acknowledge complexity without managing it.

In this whitepaper, I define complexity as an epistemic boundary—the point at which interaction density exceeds what can be fully understood or verified through human reasoning alone.

This distinction matters. A complicated system can be solved. A complex system must be governed.

The paper establishes:
– A formal definition of complexity
– The difference between complexity and complication
– How complexity is created (intentionally and unintentionally)
– Why requirements act as the first line of defense

This is the first paper in a series exploring complexity, its propagation, and why traditional verification methods begin to fail as systems scale.

Read the paper:
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/404556944_Defining_Complexity_in_Engineering_Systems_Establishing_Complexity_as_a_Governable_Property_in_Modern_Systems_Engineering