The End of Certainty by Ilya Prigogine (PDF)

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Time, the fundamental dimension of our existence, has fascinated artists, philosophers, and scientists of every culture and every century. All of us can remember a moment as a child when time became a personal reality, when we realized what a “year” was, or asked ourselves when “now” happened. Common sense says time moves forward, never backward, from cradle to grave. Nevertheless, Einstein said that time is an illusion. Nature’s laws, as he and Newton defined them, describe a timeless, deterministic universe within which we can make predictions with complete certainty. In effect, these great physicists contended that time is reversible and thus meaningless.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Amazon.com Review In this intellectually challenging book, Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine tackles some of the difficult questions that bedevil physicists trying to provide an explanation for the world we observe. How is it, for instance, that basic principles of quantum mechanics–which lack any differentiation between forward and backward directions in time–can explain a world with an “arrow of time” headed unambiguously forward? And how do we escape classical physics’ assertion that the world is deterministic? In a sometimes mathematical and frequently mind-bending book, Prigogine explores deterministic chaos, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, and even cosmology and the origin of the universe in an attempt to reach an explanation that can reconcile physical laws with subjective reality. From Booklist Since adolescence, Nobel laureate Prigogine has been haunted by the thorny problem of time, which has so preoccupied him that he scrawled “Time precedes existence” on a scientific memorial in Moscow. One of the founders of chaos theory, Prigogine has for decades propounded a view contrary to the assumption of temporal reversibility that is commonly accepted by theoretical physicists (ordinary folk have always been baffled by the idea that minus-t and plus-t [terms representing, respectively, time going backward and going forward] can somehow ever be the same). Although accepting relativity and the time-space continuum, Prigogine proposes a radical synthesis of Newtonian and quantum physics that is intriguing enough to reward the tough going that the book’s intense concentration of formulas (on which Prigogine’s arguments center) will be for most general readers. Prigogine claims that it is time’s arrow that finally makes clear how probabilities become actualities and how “becoming” becomes “being.” A groundbreaking work by a major figure in today’s scientific revolution. Patricia Monaghan From Kirkus Reviews A Nobel Prizewinning chemist bridges science and philosophy in explaining how chaos theory shows that time is real and determinism untenable. To some, the title may misleadingly suggest a book about the hopelessness of knowing whether anything is real. In fact, Prigogine (coauthor, Order Out of Chaos, 1984, etc.) argues that one object of everyday belief–the irreversibility of events, or the arrow of time–is much more real than classical and quantum physics have allowed. According to Prigogine, most physicists, from Newton to Einstein to Stephen Hawking, have described the universe as deterministic and “time-symmetrical”–with the corollary that time, probability, and free will can only be illusions resulting from human ignorance. Because that view conflicts with much of philosophy and common sense, it has contributed to the alienation of science from the rest of human culture. Prigogine moves toward ending that alienation by affirming the reality of time, arguing that advances in the physics of nonequilibrium processes and unstable systems now make it possible to revise the basic laws of physics “in accordance with the open, evolving universe in which mankind lives.” In passages dense with mathematics, Prigogine shows how probability and irreversibility affect particle interaction, thermodynamics, classical and quantum mechanics, and cosmology. The validity of these claims can only be judged by specialists; the general reader is given little aid in understanding them, much less in gauging how well they support the author’s belief that “we are actually at the beginning of a new scientific era.” But the nonmathematical sections of the book concisely outline Prigogine’s brand of realism: one in which actions have meaning and creativity is prized because consequences are real and the future cannot be predicted. A blend of philosophy and physics that will stir both specialists and nonspecialists to think freshly about what is real. — Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Review Oliver Sacks “Prigogine is a pioneer of chaos and self-organization theory, and his vision is as revolutionary and fundamental as Darwin’s. With a fascinating blend of the conceptual, historical, and personal, he gives us a rare and privileged glimpse into one of the most adventurous scientific imaginations of our time.” From the Publisher Time, the fundamental dimension of our existence, has fascinated artists, philosophers, and scientists of every culture and every century. All of us can remember a moment as a child when time became a personal reality, when we realized what a “year” was, or asked ourselves when “now” happened. Common sense says time moves forward, never backward, from cradle to grave. Nevertheless, Einstein said that time is an illusion. Nature’s laws, as he and Newton defined them, describe a timeless, deterministic universe within which we can make predictions with complete certainty. In effect, these great physicists contended that time is reversible and thus meaningless.END About the Author Viscount Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, is the Director of the Ilya Prigogine Center of Statistical Mechanics, THermodynamics and Complex Systems in Austin, Texas, and the Director of the Solvay Institutes of Physics and Chemistry in Brussels. The recipient of honorary degrees from more than forty universities around the world, Prigogine has had five institutes devoted to the study of complex systems named for him. He lives in Brussels and Austin. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is the book that all of today’s physicists should read. The more I learn about the impressive edifice of modern physics the more I learn that it’s built on quick sand due to the many inconsistencies between theories, a strangely anti-empirical stance when it comes to the nature of time, and a willingness to accept paradox as an interesting feature of a theory when this should be an obvious hint of major problems. I can’t comment on whether Prigogine’s work is the necessary antidote but I do feel that his re-injection of asymmetrical time into the equations of physics is a very important first step. I also appreciate his appreciation for a broader view than most physicists are capable of today. It seems that the way to solve the many impasses of today’s physics will require a broad interdisciplinary approach to knowledge. And key to that approach is the realization that Heraclitus was right: all things flow.

⭐Not an easy read for those of us who are not in the field of nonlinear therodynamics, but clearly the work of creative genius. Clearly a breakthrough in the way we think about the world around us.

⭐This book is really interesting, but not for those with minimal mathematical literacy. It is written for a “lay” audience, but gets pretty deep into the mathematical argument that physics, including quantum dynamics is not quite right without a foundation that gives time an arrow. He basically explains an integration of thermodynamics and quantum dynamics.

⭐All I can say is this chemistry Nobel Laureate’s work was novel and illuminating, looking at chemistry (relative to life, in particular) from a highly unique yet appropriate perspective. It should be on the reading list of anyone who is curious about the universe, and our place within it.

⭐Found this book from another one talking about Santa Fe. This one is very interesting but due to my poor background in Math and Physics, can’t fully understand the whole book, but get the big picture.

⭐i LOVED this book, even though for large sections i didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. he’s a math wizard and has an amazing mind, but the clarity of his reasoning is superb and if you skim through what you don’t understand, you’ll find pages and pages of amazing conclusions and well thought out points. A CLASSIC.

⭐As someone with a fair amount of scientific background I must say that this book, which purports to be aimed at a general audience, contains a considerable amount of material that is less than clear. The author suddenly transitions from prose to mathematics on a number of occasions and often leaves it to the reader to construct understanding. Scientists often fail to take account of their audience and are, in effect, trained by example in both written and verbal communication to make little effort to construct clear explanations. As an effort to communicate clearly with non-scientists, this book is quite a bit less than successful although it contains material of substantial interest. Not recommended for the general reader.

⭐Interesting but the book offer little alternatives to think out of the logic that create the unsustainable problem we are facing as a society

⭐Ilya Prigogine was certainly a brilliant mind and presents and interesting theory in this book. But he fails at the task he sets himself, to make this book accessible to general readers. He not only reviews the basics of mechanics, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics with a brief excursion to relativity, he aims to substantially extend these subjects to account for the irreversibility of nature. Even for a reader with an advanced knowledge of physics like university degree level this is quite something to digest. Long passages are very well written, and I have enjoyed them, but it was helpful to have previously read other books of the author. Be warned, the text is full of equations!When it comes to the interesting new parts, I think the book falls short and I wonder if anyone who is not working in the field of chaos theory will be able to follow.

⭐Needs reading twice and maybe a third time. Poincare resonances are obviously more important that I thought!

⭐mind provoking

⭐This book did confront me with one of the most important perceptions in my life: that all physical elements can decay ( i would prefer to say transform or transmute) under certain circumstances – in one of about 10 high 22 sun systems in our universe – from an Excited State (at high temperature) into 1st) a Photon, quantum wave state with a corresponding frequency (which mutates later at a lower temperature from Bright Energy into Bright Matter) and into 2nd) a Ground State Particle (like Dark Matter with Dark Energy, Black Holes, rotating with Gravitation).This knowledge leads us to understand why our universe includes more than 90 % of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.Considering Cosmic Microwave Background Temperature and Ludwig Boltzmann, s Constant, we can also understand that our universe shall reach the next cosmic cycle in about 14 billion years, to follow the eternal cycles of space-time in Cosmos, in harmony with bruno.espinosas panidism.

⭐I found it to ramble on and on at times. I would say 3.5 stars out of 5. Could hit the point more.

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