Lectures In Synergetics

Lectures In Synergetics

The world that surrounds us is a complex system of interacting objects. The versatility of the links and interactions brings about the infinite multiplicity of natural phenomena. “Synergetics” studies nonlinear nonequilibrium processes and self-organization phenomena, allowing for description, systematization and generalization of the phenomena that are described by the different branches of natural science: physics, chemistry, biology, as well as sociology and economics. This book introduces the reader to the exciting world of the nonlinear phenomena that are studied in synergetics. The book comprises treatises on mathematical methods for the study of nonequilibrium processes and presents versatile phenomena studied in synergetics: multistability, self-oscillation, spatial stratification, autowaves, kinetic phase transitions and chaos. Examples of self-organization in physics, chemistry, biology covered in this volume include laser generation, optical bistability, self-oscillations in semiconductors and chemical reactions, spatial stratification in hydrodynamics and in crystals, auto-waves in semiconductors and nerve fibers and many other phenomena. The majority of the phenomena considered occur in physics but the book is also useful for chemists and biologists.

Cooperative Effects

Lectures on Perception

Lectures on Perception: An Ecological Perspective addresses the generic principles by which each and every kind of life form—from single celled organisms (e.g., difflugia) to multi-celled organisms (e.g., primates)—perceives the circumstances of their living so that they can behave adaptively. It focuses on the fundamental ability that relates each and every organism to its surroundings, namely, the ability to perceive things in the sense of how to get about among them and what to do, or not to do, with them. The book’s core thesis breaks from the conventional interpretation of perception as a form of abduction based on innate hypotheses and acquired knowledge, and from the historical scientific focus on the perceptual abilities of animals, most especially those abilities ascribed to humankind. Specifically, it advances the thesis of perception as a matter of laws and principles at nature’s ecological scale, and gives equal theoretical consideration to the perceptual achievements of all of the classically defined ‘kingdoms’ of organisms—Archaea, Bacteria, Protoctista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia.