---
slug: paper-prigogine-i-1977-nobel-lecture-time-structure-and-fluctuations
title: Prigogine 1977 Nobel Lecture: Time, Structure and Fluctuations
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/paper-prigogine-i-1977-nobel-lecture-time-structure-and-fluctuations
---

## Core Results

Ilya Prigogine delivered the Nobel Lecture on 8 December 1977. The lecture establishes that irreversible processes far from equilibrium can produce dissipative structures. These structures arise when fluctuations amplify beyond a critical instability point. Energy dissipation organizes matter into coherent space-time patterns. Equilibrium thermodynamics describes crystals and other minimum-energy states. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics describes functional order sustained by continuous flows.

The lecture shows three linked aspects in dissipative structures: chemical function, space-time organization, and fluctuations that trigger change. Order emerges through fluctuations rather than despite them.

## Exact Primary Passages

The lecture appears as the PDF at https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/prigogine-lecture.pdf and in Science 201 (1978): 777-785.

Key passage from section 1: "Irreversible processes may lead to a new type of dynamic states of matter which I have called 'dissipative structures'."

From the Bénard instability example in section 2: "We have here a good example of the fact that non-equilibrium may be a source of order."

Further: "A new supermolecular order appears which corresponds basically to a giant fluctuation stabilized by exchanges of energy with the outside world. This is the order characterized by the occurrence of 'dissipative structures'."

From section 1 on the three aspects: "There are three aspects which are always linked in dissipative structures: the function as expressed by the chemical equations, the space-time structure, which results from the instabilities, and the fluctuations, which trigger the instabilities."

## Convergence Patterns Touched

The work directly addresses flow networks and bounded chaos. Energy flows through open systems produce waves, symmetry breaking, and scale-invariant patterns. The Bénard cells illustrate convection rolls that repeat across scales. Fluctuations drive transitions that match the grain of reliable structural families: branching flows, symmetry, and memory-like persistence once the structure stabilizes.

The lecture places time as an active variable tied to irreversibility. This aligns with the Ladder step from difference and flow to structure.

## Distance from Full Synthesis

Prigogine supplies the thermodynamic mechanism for order from energy flow. The Mirror Layer (reader inside the system) receives indirect support because the observer participates in the same irreversible processes. The lecture stays at the level of physical chemistry and does not extend to life or mind. It supplies the physical substrate for the grain but leaves biological and cognitive layers for later work.

## Honest Limits and Disconfirming Edges

The derivations assume local equilibrium near the instability threshold. Far-from-equilibrium behavior requires additional assumptions and remains partly open. The lecture notes that the minimum entropy production theorem fails beyond the linear regime; this constitutes an internal limit acknowledged in the text. Reductionist accounts that treat all order as equilibrium structures receive direct counter-evidence from the Bénard and chemical oscillator cases, yet the lecture does not claim universality across all physical regimes.

## Claims

The article contains the following atomic claims.

## Sources
