Over the past years the field of synergetics has been mushrooming. An ever increasing number of scientific papers are published on the subject, and numerous conferences all over the world are devoted to it. Depending on the particular aspects of synergetics being treated, these conferences can have such varied titles as "Nonequilibrium Nonlinear Statistical Physics," "Self-Organization," "Chaos and Order," and others. Many professors and students have expressed the view that the present book provides a good introduction to this new field. This is also reflected by the fact that it has been translated into Russian, Japanese, Chinese, German, and other languages, and that the second edition has also sold out. I am taking the third edition as an opportunity to cover some important recent developments and to make the book still more readable. First, I have largely revised the section on self-organization in continuously extended media and entirely rewritten the section on the Benard instability. Sec ond, because the methods of synergetics are penetrating such fields as eco nomics, I have included an economic model on the transition from full employ ment to underemployment in which I use the concept of nonequilibrium phase transitions developed elsewhere in the book. Third, because a great many papers are currently devoted to the fascinating problem of chaotic motion, I have added a section on discrete maps. These maps are widely used in such problems, and can reveal period-doubling bifurcations, intermittency, and chaos.

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.

Klappentext

Over the past years the field of synergetics has been mushrooming. An ever­ increasing number of scientific papers are published on the subject, and numerous conferences all over the world are devoted to it. Depending on the particular aspects of synergetics being treated, these conferences can have such varied titles as "Nonequilibrium Nonlinear Statistical Physics," "Self-Organization," "Chaos and Order," and others. Many professors and students have expressed the view that the present book provides a good introduction to this new field. This is also reflected by the fact that it has been translated into Russian, Japanese, Chinese, German, and other languages, and that the second edition has also sold out. I am taking the third edition as an opportunity to cover some important recent developments and to make the book still more readable. First, I have largely revised the section on self-organization in continuously extended media and entirely rewritten the section on the Benard instability. Sec­ ond, because the methods of synergetics are penetrating such fields as eco­ nomics, I have included an economic model on the transition from full employ­ ment to underemployment in which I use the concept of nonequilibrium phase transitions developed elsewhere in the book. Third, because a great many papers are currently devoted to the fascinating problem of chaotic motion, I have added a section on discrete maps. These maps are widely used in such problems, and can reveal period-doubling bifurcations, intermittency, and chaos.

Inhalt

1. Goal.- 1.1 Order and Disorder: Some Typical Phenomena.- 1.2 Some Typical Problems and Difficulties.- 1.3 How We Shall Proceed.- 2. Probability.- 2.1 Object of Our Investigations: The Sample Space.- 2.2 Random Variables.- 2.3 Probability.- 2.4 Distribution.- 2.5 Random Variables with Densities.- 2.6 Joint Probability.- 2.7 Mathematical Expectation E(X), and Moments.- 2.8 Conditional Probabilities.- 2.9 Independent and Dependent Random Variables.- 2.10 Generating Functions and Characteristic Functions.- 2.11 A Special Probability Distribution: Binomial Distribution.- 2.12 The Poisson Distribution.- 2.13 The Normal Distribution (Gaussian Distribution).- 2.14 Stirling's Formula.- 2.15 Central Limit Theorem.- 3. Information.- 3.1 Some Basic Ideas.- 3.2 Information Gain: An Illustrative Derivation.- 3.3 Information Entropy and Constraints.- 3.4 An Example from Physics: Thermodynamics.- 3.5 An Approach to Irreversible Thermodynamics.- 3.6 EntropyCurse of Statistical Mechanics?.- 4. Chance.- 4.1 A Model of Brownian Movement.- 4.2 The Random Walk Model and Its Master Equation.- 4.3 Joint Probability and Paths. Markov Processes. The Chapman-Kolmogorov Equation. Path Integrals.- Sections with an asterisk in the heading may be omitted during a first reading..- 4.4 How to Use Joint Probabilities. Moments. Characteristic Function. Gaussian Processes.- 4.5 The Master Equation.- 4.6 Exact Stationary Solution of the Master Equation for Systems in Detailed Balance.- 4.7 The Master Equation with Detailed Balance. Symmetrization, Eigenvalues and Eigenstates.- 4.8 Kirchhoff's Method of Solution of the Master Equation.- 4.9 Theorems about Solutions of the Master Equation.- 4.10 The Meaning of Random Processes, Stationary State, Fluctuations, Recurrence Time.- 4.11 Master Equationand Limitations of Irreversible Thermodynamics.- 5. Necessity.- 5.1 Dynamic Processes.- 5.2 Critical Points and Trajectories in a Phase Plane. Once Again Limit Cycles.- 5.3 Stability.- 5.4 Examples and Exercises on Bifurcation and Stability.- 5.5 Classification of Static Instabilities, or an Elementary Approach to Thorn's Theory of Catastrophes.- 6. Chance and Necessity.- 6.1 Langevin Equations: An Example.- 6.2 Reservoirs and Random Forces.- 6.3 The Fokker-Planck Equation.- 6.4 Some Properties and Stationary Solutions of the Fokker-Planck-Equation.- 6.6 Time-Dependent Solutions of the Fokker-Planck Equation.- 6.6 Solution of the Fokker-Planck Equation by Path Integrals.- 6.7 Phase Transition Analogy.- 6.8 Phase Transition Analogy in Continuous Media: Space-Dependent Order Parameter.- 7. Self-Organization.- 7.1 Organization.- 7.2 Self-Organization.- 7.3 The Role of Fluctuations: Reliability or Adaptibility? Switching.- 7.4 Adiabatic Elimination of Fast Relaxing Variables from the Fokker-Planck Equation.- 7.5 Adiabatic Elimination of Fast Relaxing Variables from the Master Equation.- 7.6 Self-Organization in Continuously Extended Media. An Outline of the Mathematical Approach.- 7.7 Generalized Ginzburg-Landau Equations for Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions.- 7.8 Higher-Order Contributions to Generalized Ginzburg-Landau Equations.- 7.9 Scaling Theory of Continuously Extended Nonequilibrium Systems.- 7.10 Soft-Mode Instability.- 7.11 Hard-Mode Instability.- 8. Physical Systems.- 8.1 Cooperative Effects in the Laser: Self-Organization and Phase Transition.- 8.2 The Laser Equations in the Mode Picture.- 8.3 The Order Parameter Concept.- 8.4 The Single-Mode Laser.- 8.5 The Multimode Laser.- 8.6 Laser with Continuously Many Modes. Analogy with Superconductivity.- 8.7First-Order Phase Transitions of the Single-Mode Laser.- 8.8 Hierarchy of Laser Instabilities and Ultrashort Laser Pulses.- 8.9 Instabilities in Fluid Dynamics: The Bénar…