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Nature -- both animate and inanimate -- provides many striking
examples of structures that are internally ordered in readily identifiable patterns.
But what organizing principle produces these arrangements? The
overwhelming evidence points to self-organization as their source. However, when
traditional branches of science try to explain this organizing principle, they
attempt too reach conclusions based on the isolation and investigation of separate,
progressively more minute parts of the original structure. Unfortunately, this
reductive approach produces more-or-less clear identification of the parts but
no satisfactory explanation of how they function together or of what has set them
in order. Synergetics therefore represents a radical
new approach to scientific inquiry into the phenomenon of structural self-organization:
an approach based on analysis of the cooperation of parts within each structure
or entity. In The Science of Structure: Synergetics, Professor Herman Haken
-- one of the world's foremost authorities on synergetics -- provides a lucid
account of the principles, discoveries, and applications of this extraordinary
new science. Professor Haken argues convincingly that orderly structures in the
universe emerge not merely by fortuitous accident from a number of random events,
but by conformity of the elements of each structure to a discernible order parameter.
The creation of order out of chaos, he concludes, is inevitable and largely independent
of the material substrate on which particular reactions occur. In
a far-ranging series of detailed investigations, Professor Haken discusses the
application of synergetics to: - The characteristics
of lasers
- Chemical patterns
- Theories
of brain function
- Computers and computer networks
- Evolutionary
theory
- Business competition and economics
- Public
opinion
- Mass media
- Scientific
thought
- Synergetics itself
The
Science of Structure: Synergetics provides a complete introduction for the
lay reader to this important and unifying science. One may certainly hope that,
with continuing study of phenomena in light of synergetics, human understanding
of the cooperative nature of the universe will be extended and deepened.
Hermann Haken is professor of theoretical physics at the
University of Stuttgart. An expert in laser technology, Professor Haken has also
taught in England, France, Japan, the United States, and the Soviet Union. He
is a past winner of the Albert A. Michelson Medal from the Franklin Institute
of Philadelphia. |
