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Books : reviews

Ilya Prigogine.
From Being to Becoming: time and complexity in the physical sciences.
WH Freeman. 1980

Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers.
Order out of Chaos.
Flamingo. 1984

(read but not reviewed)

Ilya Prigogine, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1977 for his work on the thermodynamics of nonequilibrium systems, makes his ideas accessible to a wide audience in this astonishing book which has engendered massive debate in Europe and America. He and his colleague Isabelle Stengers show how the two great themes of classical science, order and chaos, which co-existed uneasily for centuries, are being reconciled in a new and unexpected synthesis: ‘We know now that nonequilibrium, the flow of matter and energy, may be a source of order. We have a feeling of great intellectual excitement: we begin to have a glimpse of the road that leads from being to becoming.’

Ilya Prigogine.
Chaotic Dynamics and Transport in Fluids and Plasmas.
American Institute of Physics. 1993

Ilya Prigogine.
The End of Certainty: time, chaos and the new laws of nature.
Free Press. 1997

Dilip K. Kondepudi, Ilya Prigogine.
Modern Thermodynamics: from heat engines to dissipative structures.
Wiley. 1998

Modern Thermodynamics is a comprehensive introduction to this important subject, presenting a unified view of both equilibrium and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Introducing the subject in a modern and exciting way, the relationship between irreversible processes that occur naturally and the rate of increase of entropy is introduced early on, enabling the reader to benefit from seeing this relationship in such processes as heat conduction and chemical reactions. The importance played by historical developments is also recognized, and topics are often presented in their historical context, leading to a fuller appreciation of the subject. Recognising the importance of computers in this field, readers are encouraged to solve problems using computers and access thermodynamic data and information on the World Wide Web.

Modern Thermodynamics:
• Presents thermodynamics as a science of irreversible processes.
• Takes a unified view of both equilibrium and nonequilibrium thermodynamics.
• Contains many applications drawn from science and engineering, along with real world examples and problems.
• Encourages the reader to access real data and information on the Web through the provision of WWW addresses.
• Shows the reader how to solve problems using computer packages such as Mathematica.