Synergetics emerged in the early 1970s. The term "synergy" comes from the Greek "synergos" - jointly acting.
Synergetics is a scientific direction that studies the relationships between structural elements, subsystems that are formed in open systems - biological, physico-chemical and others.
The creator of the synergetic direction and the inventor of the term "synergetics" is a professor at the University of Stuttgart and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics and Synergetics Herman Haken.
Synergetics tries to find a connection between inorganic and living nature. Synergetics is looking for an answer to the question of how the macrosystems in which we live arose. In many cases, the process of systematization and self-organization is associated with the collective behavior of subsystems that form a continuous system. Along with the processes of self-organization, synergetics also considers the issues of self-disorganization - the emergence of chaos in dynamic systems. As a rule, the systems under study are dissipative - this is an open system that operates far from thermodynamic equilibrium.
The basis of synergetics is the unity of phenomena, methods and models that one has to face when studying the emergence of order from disorder or chaos - in chemistry (Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction), cosmology (spiral galaxies), in ecology (organization of communities). An example of self-organization in hydrodynamics is the formation in a heated liquid (starting from a certain temperature) of hexagonal Benard cells (a type of natural convection that occurs in a flat horizontal layer of a liquid heated from below, in which the liquid forms a regular structure of convection cells) the emergence of toroidal vortices (Taylor vortices) between rotating cylinders. An example of forced organization is mode locking in a multimode laser with the help of external periodic influences. Of interest for understanding the laws of synergetics are the processes of prebiological self-organization to the biological level. Self-organizing systems arose historically in the period of the emergence of life on Earth.
Synergetics pursues three main ideas: non-equilibrium, openness and non-linearity.
The state of equilibrium can be stable (stationary) and dynamic. A stationary equilibrium state is said to be in the event that when the parameters of the system change, which arose under the influence of external or internal disturbances, the system returns to its previous state. The state of dynamic (unstable) equilibrium occurs when a change in parameters entails further changes in the same direction and increases over time. Such a stable state can arise in a system that is far from stationary equilibrium.
For a long time, only closed systems that have no connection with the external environment can be in equilibrium, while for open systems, equilibrium can only be an instant in the process of continuous changes. Equilibrium systems are not capable of development and self-organization, since they suppress deviations from their stationary state, while development and self-organization imply its qualitative change.
Non-equilibrium can be defined as the state of an open system, in which there is a change in its macroscopic parameters, that is, its composition, structure and behavior.
Openness is the ability of a system to constantly exchange matter (energy, information) with the environment and have both "sources" - zones of replenishment of its environmental energy, the action of which contributes to an increase in the structural heterogeneity of this system, and "sinks" - zones of dispersion, "discharge » energy, as a result of which the smoothing of structural inhomogeneities in the system occurs. Openness (the presence of external "sources" ("sinks")) is a necessary condition for the existence of non-equilibrium states, as opposed to a closed system, which inevitably tends, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, to a homogeneous equilibrium state.
Nonlinearity is the property of a system to have in its structure various stationary states corresponding to various admissible laws of behavior of this system. Whenever the behavior of such objects can be expressed by a system of equations, these equations turn out to be nonlinear in the mathematical sense. The system is not linear if at different times, under different external influences, its behavior is determined by different laws. This creates a phenomenon of complex and varied behavior that does not fit into a single theoretical scheme. From this behavioral feature of nonlinear systems follows the most important conclusion about the possibility of predicting and controlling them. The evolution of the behavior (and development) of this type of systems is complex and ambiguous, therefore, external or internal influences can cause deviations of such a system from its stationary state in any direction. The same stationary state of such a system is stable under certain conditions, but not stable under other conditions; a transition to another stationary state is possible.
An important achievement of synergetics is the discovery of the mechanism of resonant excitation. A system in a non-equilibrium state is sensitive to influences consistent with its own properties. Therefore, fluctuations in the external environment turn out to be not "noise", but a factor in the generation of new structures. Small, but consistent with the internal state of external systems influencing the structure can be more effective than large ones. Nonlinear systems demonstrate unexpectedly strong responses to resonant perturbations relevant to their internal organization.
The concept of non-linearity is used more widely, acquiring an ideological meaning. The idea of non-linearity includes multi-variability, alternative choice of evolution paths and its irreversibility. Nonlinear systems are influenced by random, small influences generated by nonequilibrium.
Dissipative structures arising in the process of self-organization, for the implementation of which a scattering (dissipative) factor is required. The role of effluents is more important here. Such structures tend to a stationary state. Dissipative structures appear in open oscillatory systems with a strong external feed. The energy stored in them can be released, in particular, when weak excitations (fluctuations) enter the system, and the response of the system to this excitation can be unpredictably strong. Dissipative structures “live” (in the systemic sense) by using the rejected energy of the external environment for their own needs.
“Dissipativity is a factor of “natural selection” that destroys everything that does not meet development trends, a “sculptor’s hammer”, with which he cuts off everything superfluous from a block of stone, creating a sculpture.”
