Ilya Prigogine (PhD, Nobel)

Dr. Ilya Prigogine, a Belgian physical chemist, received the 1977 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on dissipative structures and complex systems which include the earth's climate and the human brain. His father was a chemical engineer and mother was a pianist who attended the Moscow Conservatory. They immigrated from Russia to Germany in 1921 during to the political an economic instability of Russia at that time. Prigogine understood mathematical probability when he stated: "The statistical probability that organic structures, and the most precisely harmonized reactions that typify living organisms would be generated by accident, is Zero."