1917-2003. Belgian physical chemist. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1977).
Developed the theory of dissipative structures: far-from-equilibrium systems maintain order by importing free energy and exporting entropy.
Showed that self-organization emerges spontaneously in open systems driven far from equilibrium — crystals forming, convection cells, chemical oscillations.
His central insight: order does not require design. it emerges from energy flow through a system under conservation laws.
The cybergraph operates in this regime: token stake provides energy inflow, link decay and exploration export entropy, and focus sharpening creates syntropy. stop the energy inflow and π drifts to uniform — the system dies.
see dissipative structures for the theory. see negentropy vs entropy for the full thermodynamic framework applied to cyber