The place of living organisms in the natural world is a nearly perennial question in
philosophy and the sciences; how can inanimate matter yield animate beings? A dominant …

Recent advances in nonequilibrium thermodynamics leads to the conclusion that similar
processes, constrained by the second law of thermodynamics, give rise to the emergence of …

When driven by an external thermodynamic gradient, non-biological physical systems can
exhibit a wide range of behaviours usually associated with living systems. Consequently …

Modern open system thermodynamics, as pioneered by Prigogine, provides a new
framework for examining living and associated systems [Ji 1987][Schorr and Schroeder …

In this paper, we discuss some well-known experimental observations on self-organization
in dissipative systems. The examples range from pure fluid flow, pattern selection in fluid …

Friends and colleagues who knew Ilya Prigogine well called him “A poet of
thermodynamics.” It is an apt description. When Prigogine talked about thermodynamics and …

Living cells are spatially bounded, low entropy systems that, although far from
thermodynamic equilibrium, have persisted for billions of years. Schrödinger, Prigogine, and …

Self-organization in nonequilibrium systems has been known for over 50 years. Under
nonequilibrium conditions, the state of a system can become unstable and a transition to an …

Coordination within and between organisms is one of the most complex abilities of living
systems, requiring the concerted regulation of many physiological constituents, and this …

Darwin proposed that the capacity of organisms to produce more offspring that can be
supported by the environment would lead to a struggle for existence, and individuals that are …