Hermann Haken

synergetics.

Emeritus professor at the University of Stuttgart, Haken developed laser theory before establishing synergetics as a formal discipline. His 1977 book 'Synergetics: An Introduction' showed how ordered macroscopic patterns emerge spontaneously from the interactions of many subsystems — a principle applicable from physics to biology and sociology. The concept of the 'order parameter' driving collective behaviour is his signature theoretical contribution.