Hermann Haken

Hermann Haken (born July 12, 1927 in Leipzig, Germany) is physicist and professor emeritus in theoretical physics at the University of Stuttgart. He is known as the founder of synergetics. He is a cousin of the mathematician Wolfgang Haken, who proved the Four color theorem.

After his studies in mathematics and physics in Halle (Saale) and Erlangen, receiving his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1951 at the University of Erlangen and being guest lecturer at universities in the UK and U.S., Haken was appointed as a full professor in theoretical physics at the University of Stuttgart. His research has been in non linear optics (his specialities are laser physics, particle physics, statistical physics and group theory).

Haken developed his institute in a relatively short time to be an international center for laser theory, starting in 1960 when Theodore Maiman built the first experimental laser. The interpretation of the laser principles as self-organization of non equilibrium systems paved the way at the end of the 1960s to the development of synergetics, of which Haken is recognized as the founder. Haken is the author of some 23 textbooks and monographs that cover an impressive number of topics from laser physics, atomic physics, quantum field theory, to synergetics. Although Haken's early books tend to be rather mathematical, at least one of his books Light is nicely written, for the more general reader, and loaded with physical insights. One of his successful popular books is "Erfolgsgeheimnis der Natur", or in English, "The Science of Structure: Synergetics".

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