8/9/2019 Is the Irreversibility We See a Fundamental Property of Nature [Prigogine]
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Order out of Chaos
Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers, and Heinz R. Pagels
Citation: Phys. Today 8(1), 97 (1985); doi: 10.1063/1.2813716
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2813716
View Table of Contents: http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/PHTOAD/v38/i1
Published by theAmerican Institute of Physics.
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s d i e i r r e v e r s i b i l i t y
w e s e e a f u n d a m e n t a l p r o p e r t y o f n a t u r e
llyaPrigogine and Isabelle Stengers
antam, New York, 1984.$8.95
Heinz R Pagels
The observation of the gra dual
tes wh at physicists call time 's
irreversibility of time.
Yet, if we were able to see a movie of
we would not be able to tell
t ime;from a microscop-
ion. How is it possible then, tha t
This profound question, first ad-
f motion. In
Boltzmann's
The origin of irreversible time is the
Order Out of Chaos
by
physicist at Rock efeller University. He
The osmic ode and a
mathematical physicist llya Prigogine
and Isabelle Stenge rs. The book is
divided into three parts. The first,
The Delusion of the Un iversal, is a
philosophical history of physics with
quotations from Kant, Diderot, Hegel,
Bergson andWhitehead,among others.
These citations from eminent philos-
ophers sound somewhat like that of an
ineffectual chorus before the unfolding
drama of modern science. The authors
tak e issue with th e reductionist tenden-
cy of science, wh at they call the basic
m yth of science, held by most contem-
porary scientists, including Einstein.
In Einstein 's words, this m yth is the
view th at the the general laws of
physics
.
claim to be valid for any
natu ral phenomena whatsoever and
tha t it ought to be possible to arriv e at
the description . . of every na tur al pro-
cess, including life, by means of pure
deduction.
The final two parts of the book
attempt to provide the scientific sup-
port for the integrative philosophy
espoused by the au tho rs. In the second
par t, The Science of Com plexity, one
finds clear descriptions of expe rimen ts
and theoretical models th at serve as an
introduction to the formidable subjects
of statistical mechanics, nonlinear dy-
namics and the study of physical sys-
tems far from equilibrium . But most
physicists who devote their lives to
these subjects will find their treatment
distur bing . For while this book con-
tains much that is new and correct, all
too often that which is correct is not
new and that which is new is not
PHYSICS TODAY / JANUARY 1985 9 7Downloaded 21 Sep 2012 to 130.207.50.37. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://www.physicstoday.org/about_us/terms
8/9/2019 Is the Irreversibility We See a Fundamental Property of Nature [Prigogine]
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sequencing,
MKS
correct.
Prigogine had the good taste to work
upon themost profound problem sin
physics. To his own surprise (as noted
in the foreword) andth a t ofother
scientists,hereceived theNobel Prize
in chemistry in1977. Incollaboration
with
P
Glansdorff,
he
devised The
Univ ersal Evolution Criterion, which
was misinterpreted by some scientists
to
be an
im por tant generalization
to
far-from-equilibrium
system s of earlier
mathematical work ofBoltzmann and
Lars Onsager (the Norwegian physi-
cist)onclose-to-equilibrium thermody-
namicsystems. But, already in1974,it
was clear from the critical work of the
Americans Ronald Fox and Joel Keizer
tha t this univer sal criterio n was not
universal. Much tohis credit, Prigo-
gineinthis book finally abandon shis
claim
to
have found
a
uni vers al crite-
rion, which figures prominently in his
previous writings. Reversing hispre-
vious view completely,
he
writes,
In
contrast with close-to-equilibrium
sit-
uations,
the
behavior
of a
far-from-
equilibrium system becomes highly
specific.
The idea that living organismsare
examples of self-organ izing physical
systems
isnot
new. Boltzmann, who
admired Darw in's evolutionary theory,
described theleavesofa tree growing
in sunlight asexamplesoforganizing
open systems. Alan Turing,
the
Eng-
lish mathematical genius, began
the
modern theory
of
chem ical self-organi-
zationinhis 1952 sem inal paper, The
Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis.
This work is referred to in one sentence
in this book. The main idea
is
that if
the physical parameters that charac-
terize chemical reactions that might
occurin anorganism exceed critical
values, then
the
reactions may exhibit
unusual self-organizing behavior.
Yet,inviewofwha t isknownby
biologists, the suggestion of the authors
that life, farfrom being outsidethe
natural order, appearsas thesupreme
expression
of
the
self-organizing
pro-
cesses is simply incorre ct. Most scien-
tists would agree with the critical view
expressed in
Problems o Biological
Physics (Springer-Verlag, 1981)by the
biophysicist L. A. Blumenfeld, when he
wrote: Themean ingful macroscopic
ordering ofbiological s tru ctu re does
not arise duetothe increase of certain
parameters
or a
system above their
critical values. These structuresare
built according to program-like compli-
cated architectural structures,the
meaningful information created during
many billionsofyearsofchemical and
biological evolution being used. Life
isa consequence ofm icroscopic,not
macroscopic, organization.
In thefinal part ofthe book, From
BeingtoBecoming, theautho rs take
on
the
giants Boltzm ann, Einstein,
Circle number37 onReader Service Card
8
PHYSICS TODAY/ JANUARY
1985Downloaded 21 Sep 2012 to 130.207.50.37. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://www.physicstoday.org/about_us/terms
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and just about everyone else
idea of time
own
theorigin ofmacro-
is a conse-
of a previously unrecognized
in
the microscopic
of
physics down to all levels
toquantumlevelsprovided tha t
of complexity is main-
In
short, they mainta in tha t
irreversibility is notderived from
but is
elf fund ame ntal. The virt ueoftheir
is th a t it resolves w hat they
a
clash of doctr ines about
of
time
in
physics.
Most physicists would agree that
is
neith er emp irical evidence
to
nor is there a
matical necessityforit. Thereis
clash of doctrin es. Only Prigogine
d
a
few collaborators hold
to
these
in
spite
of
their
tolivein the twilight
ofscientific credibility .
Grea t advances in ma in s t r e a m
study of non linear dynam-
theunders tanding ofcriticalphe-
by Kenneth Wilson, Leo Ka-
noff and M ichael Fisher; the exciting
and the
of
black holes
bySteven H awkingand Ja-
bBekensteinportend
a
deep unifi-
of our understandingof nature .
or none of this
ars in this book. The reader of this
the r distorted pictu re of wh at is one
f the most exciting ar eas of researchin
inParticle
Gottfried andV F Weisskopf
1984.
A D Martin
1984.
of
but
rigorous underg raduate
theincreas-
and
forpro-
on
early-stage
in
and conceptual tools being
at each step,the
ems encountered
in
trying
to
in-
all this into courses already
ng. Thu s the publi-
of a
textbook based
on the
struggletoaccomplishthisespecially
in particle physics, where develop-
ments have been rapid and profound
duringthelast twodecadesissureto
be greetedbystudentsand instructors
alike with a combination of relief,
enthusiasm, and just
a
little doubt tha t
it will work.
The two books reviewed her e
a re
surveysof the newphysics ofparti-
cles,and while the one by Gottfried and
Weisskopf is not intended specifically
as
a
graduate text
in
the field,
it
still
deserves considerationas an introduc-
tion
for
the sophisticated novice.
Al-
though both could be used profitably by
afew undergraduates, these books will
find their largest audiences among
budding particle physicistsin theearly
stages
of
graduate study, and among
workers
in
other branches
of
physics
wishing
to
acquaint themselves w ith
those developmentsofthe la st 20 years
in particle theory
and
phenomenology
tha t
are now
firmly established.
In fact,in thefirst sentence oftheir
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