Ilya Prigogine
Russian-Belgian · 1917–2003
Physical chemist and Nobel laureate who discovered dissipative structures and argued that irreversibility and chance are not defects of classical science but fundamental features of nature that give rise to order, complexity, and life.
Wikipedia ↗“Loin de l'équilibre, la matière acquiert des propriétés nouvelles.”
French
“We are living in a world of self-organization. Far from equilibrium, matter acquires new properties — properties that are not contained in the laws governing individual particles. Organization, complexity, and life itself emerge from disorder through irreversible processes.”
“La science classique mettait l'accent sur l'ordre et la stabilité ; nous voyons maintenant les fluctuations et l'instabilité à tous les niveaux.”
French
“Classical science emphasized order and stability; now we see fluctuations, instability, multiple choices, and limited predictability at all levels of observation. Ideas of disorder, of instability, once felt to be the negation of science, now form the very backbone of our understanding.”
“Nous ne pouvons plus accepter la vieille distinction a priori entre valeurs scientifiques et valeurs éthiques.”
French
“We can no longer accept the old a priori distinction between scientific and ethical values. The scientific picture of the world that takes shape in our understanding can no longer be detached from the question of what it means to be human.”
“Le possible est plus riche que le réel.”
French
“The future is uncertain — but this uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity. The possible is richer than the real.”
“La flèche du temps est la manifestation du fait que l'avenir n'est pas donné.”
French
“The arrow of time is the manifestation of the fact that the future is not given, that — as the French poet Paul Valéry emphasized — "time is construction."”
“L'entropie n'est pas seulement une perte — elle est le moteur de la créativité.”
French
“Entropy is not merely a quantity describing loss — it is the driving force of structure and creativity in the universe. Without irreversibility, there would be no life, no evolution, no history.”