These proceedings contain the invited lectures presented at the International Sym posium on Synergetics at Schloss Elmau in April, 1982. This symposium marked the th 10 anniversary of symposia on synergetics, the first of which was held at Schloss Elmau in 1972. As is now weIl known, these symposia are devoted to the study of the formation of structures in physical systems far from thermal equilibrium, as weIl as in nonphysical systems such as those in biology and sociology. While the first proceedings were published by Teubner Publishing Company in 1973 and the second by North Holland Publishing Company in 1974, the subsequent proceed ings have been published in the Springer Series in Synergetics. I believe that these proceedings give a quite faithful picture of the developments in this new interdisciplinary field over the past decade. As H.J. Queisser recently noted, the prefix "non", which is used quite frequent ly in modern scientific literature in words such as "nonequilibrium", "nonlinear", etc., indicates a new development in scientific thinking. Indeed, this new develop ment was anticipated and given a framework in the introduction of "synergetics" more than a decade ago.

Autorentext
Hermann Haken is Professor of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Stuttgart. He is known as the founder of synergetics. His research has been in nonlinear optics (in particular laser physics), solid state physics, statistical physics, and group theory. After the implementation of the first laser in 1960, Professor Haken developed his institute to an international center for laser theory. The interpretation of the laser principles as self organization of non equilibrium systems paved the way to the development of synergetics, of which Haken is recognized as the founder. Hermann Haken has been visiting professor or guest scientist in England, France, Japan, USA, Russia, and China. He is the author of some 23 textbooks and monographs that cover an impressive number of topics from laser physics to synergetics, and editor of a book series in synergetics. For his pathbreaking work and his influence on academic research, he has been awarded many-times. Among others, he is member of the Order "Pour le merite" and received the Max Planck Medal in 1990.

Inhalt
I Introduction.- Introductory Remarks.- II Evolution.- Ursprung und Evolution des Lebens auf molekularer Ebene.- III Coherence in Biology.- The Crystallization and Selection of Dynamical Order in the Evolution of Metazoan Gene Regulation.- The Synergetics of Actin-Myosin in Active Streaming and Muscle Contraction.- IV Instabilities and Pattern Formation in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.- Pattern Formation in Magnetic Fluids.- Thermoelastic Instabilities in Metals.- Spatial Chemical Structures, Chemical Waves. A Review.- Spontaneous Biological Pattern Formation in the Three Dimensional Sphere. Prepatterns in Mitosis and Cytokinesis.- Generation of Projections in the Developing and Regenerating Nervous System.- V Order and Chaos in Quantum Electronics and Fluids.- Optical Bistability, Self-Pulsing and Higher Order Bifurcations.- Benard Convection and Laser with Saturable Absorber. Oscillations and Chaos.- Bistability and Chaos in NMR Systems.- The Onset of Turbulence in the Wake of an Ion.- VI Order in Chaos.- Diversity and Universality. Spectral Structure of Discrete Time Evolution.- Onset of Chaos in Fluid Dynamics.- Transition to Chaos for Maps with Positive Schwarzian Derivative.- Scaling Properties of Discrete Dynamical Systems.- Phase Transitions in the Homoclinic Regime of Area Preserving Diffeomorphisms.- Noise Scaling of Symbolic Dynamics Entropies.- Dimension, Fractal Measures, and Chaotic Dynamics.- VII Chaos in Quantum Systems.- Cooperative and Chaotic Effects in a Hamiltonian Model of the Free-Electron Laser.- Chaos in Quantum Mechanics.- VIII Emergence of Order or Chaos in Complex Systems.- Criticality and the Emergence of Structure.- Strange Stability in Hierarchically Coupled Neuropsychobiological Systems.- List of Contributors.