The spontaneous formation of well organized structures out of germs or even out of chaos is one of the most fascinating phenomena and most challenging problems scientists are confronted with. Such phenomena are an experience of our daily life when we observe the growth of plants and animals. Thinking of much larger time scales, scientists are led into the problems of evolution, and, ultimately, of the origin of living matter. When we try to explain or understand in some sense these extremely complex biological phenomena it is a natural question, whether processes of self-organization may be found in much simpler systems of the unanimated world. | The spontaneous formation of well organized structures out of germs or even out of chaos is one of the most fascinating phenomena and most challenging problems scientists are confronted with. Such phenomena are an experience of our daily life when we observe the growth of plants and animals. Thinking of much larger time scales, scientists are led into the problems of evolution, and, ultimately, of the origin of living matter. When we try to explain or understand in some sense these extremely complex biological phenomena it is a natural question, whether processes of self-organization may be found in much simpler systems of the unanimated world. |