Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003): Structure Formation Far from Equilibrium
✍ Scribed by Grégoire Nicolis
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2003
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 63 KB
- Volume
- 42
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0044-8249
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Prigogines research touched on an extraordinary variety of subjects, yet throughout his career he consistently worked to bring the constructive role of irreversibility into focus in the understanding of natural phenomena. His driving force was the conviction that irreversibility and the arrow of time are fundamental properties of evolution and complexification, which are ubiquitous in the natural world. He realized that he had to break with prevailing ideas to implement this conviction. At times he also felt that his work touched upon matters that extended beyond the traditional realm of the physical sciences. He then had the courage to draw epistemological, philosophical, and cultural conclusions that were in his view appropriate. Because of this continuity of ideas and this humanistic dimension, Prigogines impact on science goes further than his individual technical contributions and his well-known books.