Dynamic Self Organization; What Turing started and never finished

[BaalChatzaf]

In 1952 A. M. Turing wrote a seminal paper on the self-organizing  capabilities of dynamic systems.  "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis".  It was one of the earliest mathematical  papers on the self-organizing  properties of thermodynamic systems  far from equilibrium.  In the paper he gave the underling dynamic analysis of pattern formation (in a sense he showed why the tiger has stripes and the leopard has spots). It was an auspicious beginning for  an important subfield of non-equilibrium thermodynamics.   Alas, Turing never got to continue what he started. Later that  year he had a house break that brought in the police.  In the course of the investigation it became known (to the police) that Turing was a homosexual which at that time was a major felony in Britain.  Turing was ground up by the mills of the law  an this led (sadly) to his suicide in 1954. He was only 42 years old,  still in the prime  years of his intellectual powers and if things had gone better he could have been contributing to this field for another 15 or 20 years.  But it was not to be. 

The fallen banner has been picked up starting back in the 60's.  Ilya Prigogine was a major contribute  and if one does a google on  "nonequilibrium thermodynamics"  one can find scores of interesting papers, books and youtube video displays.   Turing's demise probably delayed development in this field  by ten  years.  What a damned shame!   Please see http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/23/alan-turing-biologist-opinions-contributors-artificial-intelligence-09-olaf-sporns.html   and  http://www.wired.com/2011/02/turing-patterns/