May 28, 2003 - The Passing of Dr. Ilya Prigogine

Ilya  Prigogine
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The Ilya Prigogine Center for Studies in Statistical Mechanics and Complex Systems *recently renamed Center for Complex Quantum Systems
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Prof. Ilya Prigogine       annie@physics.utexas.edu

  • The Arrow of Time
  • Irreversibility in Nature
  • The Role of Chaos in Physics
  • Large-Scale Structures
  • Nonlinear Dynamical
  • Liouvillian Quantum Mechanics

Ilya Prigogine Institutes and Centers of Study in the World

Short Biography

Ilya Prigogine was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1977 for his contributions to nonequilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures. He was born in Moscow, Russia on January 25, 1917. He obtained both his undergraduate and graduate education in chemistry at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. He was Regental Professor and Ashbel Smith Professor of Physics and Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1967, he founded the Center for Statistical Mechanics, later renamed the Ilya Prigogine Center for Studies in Statistical Mechanics and Complex Systems. Since 1959, he was the director of the International Solvay Institutes in Brussels, Belgium. In 1989, Prigogine was awarded the title of Viscount by the King of Belgium. He was a member of 64 national and professional organizations, among which are the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The most recent of Prigogine's many international activities were Special Advisor to the European Community in Brussels, Belgium and Honorary Member of the World Commission of Culture and Development of UNESCO, chaired by Perez de Cuellar.

The main theme of the scientific work of Ilya Prigogine was a better understanding of the role of time in the physical sciences and in biology. He contributed significantly to the understanding of irreversible processes, particularly in systems far from equilibrium. The results of his work on dissipative structures have stimulated many scientists throughout the world and may have profound consequences for our understanding of biological systems.

Prigogine received numerous national awards and prizes, including the Golden Medal of the Swante Arrhenius, Swedish Academy; Rumford Gold Medal, Royal Society of London; the Descartes Medal, Paris; Commander of the Legion of Honor, France; Imperial Order of the Rising Sun (Gold & Silver Medals), Japan; Medaille d'Or, France; Russian International Scientific Award, First "N. N. Bogolyubov Prize," Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna; Medal of the President of the Italian Senate, awarded by Pio Manzu International Research Center, Italy; Norbert Wiener Gold Medal of Ukbridge; Medal of Member of the European Academy of Yuste; Silver Medal of V.I. Vernadskiy, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Russia and Commander of the World Order "Science. Culture. Education." European Academy of Information, 2002. He received 53 honorary degrees.

Recent Books

Is Future Given?
World Scientific, Singapore
2003

Modern Thermodynamics: From Heat Engines to Dissipative Structures
(with D. Kondepudi)
John Wiley & Sons, Chichester
1998

The End of Certainty, Time, Chaos and the New Laws of Nature
(with I. Stengers)
The Free Press, New York
1997

Exploring Complexity
(with G. Nicolis)
W. H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco
1989

Order Out of Chaos
(with I. Stengers)
Bantam Books, New York
1983

From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences
W. H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco
1980

Self-Organization in Non-Equilibrium Systems: From Dissipative Structures to Order Through Fluctuations
(with G. Nicolis)
J. Wiley & Sons, New York
1977

Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics
Wiley-Interscience, New York
1962

 

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Last updated 11/28/05
Ilya Prigogine--Recent Journal Articles       Top of the Page

2004 "Role of Non-integrability in Radiation Damping"
(with Ilya Prigogine and Eugenvi Karpov
Has the last word been said on classical electrodynamics? Classical electrodynamics: new horizons
eds: Andrew Chubykalo, Vladimir Onoochin, Augusto Espinoza, Roman Smirnov-Rueda (Rinton Press, Inc.)

2004 "Irreversibility, Probabilities and Dressed Unstable States in Quantum Mechanics"
(with T. Petrosky and G. Ordonez)
J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 72, 12

2003 "Radiation damping in classical systems: The role of nonintegrability"
(with G. Ordonez and T. Petrosky)
Phys. Rev. A 68, 022107

2002 "Space time formulation of quantum transitions"
(with T. Petrosky and G. Ordonez)
Physical Review A 64, 062101

2002 "Quantum transitions in interacting fields"
(with E. Karpov, G. Ordonez and T. Petrosky )
Physical Review A 66, 012109

2001 "Gamow algebras"
(with I. Antoniou, M. Gadella, E. Karpov and G. Pronko)
Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 12, 2757

2001 "Explicit construction of a time superoperator for quantum unstable systems"
(with G. Ordonez, T. Petrosky and E. Karpov)
Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 12, 2591

2001 "Quantum transitions and dressed unstable states"
(with G. Ordonez and T. Petrosky)
Phys. Rev. A 63, 052106

2001 "Chemistry Far from Equilibrium: Thermodynamics, Order and Chaos"
(with G. Dewel and Dilip Kondepudi)
The New Chemistry ed. N. Hall (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)

2000 "Causality, delocalization and positivity of energy"
(with T. Petrosky and G. Ordonez)
Physical Review A 62, 012103

2000 "Quantum Transitions and nonlocality"
(with T. Petrosky and G. Ordonez)
Physical Review A 62, 042106

2000 "Thermodynamic limit, Hilbert space and breaking of time symmetry"
(with T. Petrosky)
Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 11, 373-382

2000 "Friedrichs model with virtual transitions"
(with E. Karpov, T. Petrosky and G. Pronko)
Journal of Mathematical Physics 41, 118

2000 "The Arrow of Time"
The Chaotic Universe ed. V.G. Gurzadyan and R. Ruffini (World Scientific, Singapore)

2000 "Norbert Wiener and the Idea of Contingence"
International Journal of Systems and Cybernetics 29

2000 "Time operator for diffusion"
(with I. Antoniou, V. Sadovnichii and S.A. Shkarin)
Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 11, 465

1999 "Extension of classical dynamics: Emergence of irreversibility and stochasticity"
(with T. Petrosky)
Fundamental and Applications of complex Systems ed. G. Zgrablich (Neuva Editorial Universitaria, San Luis) 427

1999 "Laws of Nature and Time Symmetry Breaking"
(with T. Petrosky)
Generalized Functions, operatory theory and dynamical systems ed. I. Antoniou and G. (Lumer, Chapman & Hall CRC)

1999 "Laws of Nature, Probability and Time Symmetry Breaking"
(with T. Petrosky)
Physica A 263, 528-539

1998 "Semigroup Representation of the Vlasov Evolution"
(with T. Petrosky)
Journal of Plasma Physics 59, 611-618

1998 "Relativistic Gamov Vectors"
J. Math. Phys. 39