Prigogine, Ilya

Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003), a Russian-born Belgian chemist noted for his development of mathematical models of irreversible thermodynamics (as opposed to the classical reversible systems). Prigogine is best known for extending the Second Law of Thermodynamics to systems that are far from equilibrium, and demonstrating that new forms of ordered structures could exist under such conditions. Prigogine called these 'dissipative structures' because they cannot exist independently of their environment. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, ordered systems disintegrate into disordered ones through entropy. However, Prigogine showed that the formation of dissipative structures allows order to be created from disorder in non-equilibrium systems. These structures have since been used to describe phenomena such as the growth of cities, the physics of car traffic, and biological systems. Prigogine was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977.