World organisation of systems and cybernetics (WOSC)

Citation

(2003), "World organisation of systems and cybernetics (WOSC)", Kybernetes, Vol. 32 No. 9/10. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2003.06732iab.001

World organisation of systems and cybernetics (WOSC)

World organisation of systems and cybernetics (WOSC)

Vicomte Ilya Prigogine

During the preparations for the publication of this issue we were saddened to learn of the death of Professor Ilya Prigogine, the well-known scientist who won a Nobel Prize for his work on the role of time in nature. The Russian-born scientist died on Wednesday the 28th May 2003, aged 86 years. He was Belgium's only Nobel prizewinner and was revered in his adopted country and ennobled by the King of the Belgians. The main theme of Dr Prigogine's work was the search for a better understanding of the role of time in the physical sciences and in biology. He won his Nobel Prize in 1977 for his contributions to the understanding of non-equilibrium thermo-dynamics or, as cyberneticians and systemists will recall, how life could continue indefinitely in apparent defiance of the classical laws evolved in physics. Whilst the second law of thermodynamics states that in any isolated physical system, order inevitably dissolves into decay, Professor Prigogine showed that in a system powered by an energy source (the earth bathed in light and heat from the sun, for example) structures can evolve and become more complex. Dr Linda E. Reichl, the Director of the Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin, US, which is named after Dr Prigogine, said that "It showed a mechanism by which life could exist in the Physical world".

Dr Prigogine spent much of his academic career between the University of Texas and the Université Libre in Brussels. His many awards included numerous honorary degrees and medals, including the Norbert Wiener Memorial Gold Medal of the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics which was presented to him by the Director-General, Professor Robert Vallée at the 11th Congress held at Brunel University, UK in 1999[1]. The inspiring address he gave on this occasion can be found in Kybernetes (Prigogine, 2000). He very kindly invited WOSC members to visit him in Austin and in Brussels and those who did received a welcome, not only from a world-famous scientist, but from an academician with interests in music, art, archaeology and one who collected pre-Columbian statuary and ancient jade.

We would wish to express our sympathy and send our condolences to his wife Marina and his two sons.

Editor's note. We hope to publish an appreciation of his life's work and tributes to his memory in coming editions of Kybernetes.

Note 1. See Kybernetes. The Millennium Volume: cybernetics and systems in the new millennium-II (Kybernetes Vol. 29, Nos 7/8, pp. 823-4) for details of the presentation and address and the citation for the award of the Norbert Wiener Gold Medal.

Reference1. Prigogine, I. (2000), "Norbert Wiener and the idea of contingence", Kybernetes, Vol. 29 Nos 7/8, pp. 825-34.