His research earned him the Nobel Prize in 1977, for his work on the thermodynamics of nonequlibrium systems, and his contribution towards the understanding of natural processes and their descriptions has earnt him the respect of many scientists and academics in many fields. The authors have subtitled their publication Man's New Discourse with Nature , and progressively introduce and discuss the conceptual differences between the traditional mechanistic interpretation of the so-called laws of cause and effect and the inability of this paradigm alone to provide explanation for that class of phenomenal systems in which equilibrium conditions are not maintained. If it becomes useful and a resource to other students of life, then the small time spent in preparing it for the net will have been well spent. Whenever we define potential, we are defining a stable world in which the systems follow an evolution that leads them to a static situation that is established once and for all. When the thermodynamic forces acting on a system become such that the linear region is exceeded, however, the stability of the stationary state, or its independence from fluctuations, can no longer be taken for granted.
Stability is no longer the consequence of the general laws of physics.
We must examine the way a stationary state reacts to the different types of fluctuations produced by the system or its environment. The resulting vortex gives rise to the world, to all natural things. The clinamen, this spontaneous, unpredictable deviation, has often been criticised as one of the main weaknesses of Lucretian physics, as being something introduced adhoc. In fact, the contrary is true - the clinamen attempts to explain events such as laminar flow ceasing to be stable and spontaneously turning into turbulent flow. Today hydrodynamic experts test the stability of fluid flow by introducing a perturbation that expresses the effect of molecular disorder added to the average flow.