Nature is overwhelmingly dominated by systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. From the hexagonal cells of Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a heated fluid to the spiral waves of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, and from the stripes on a zebra to the vegetation patterns in semi-arid landscapes, order spontaneously emerges from disorder. The study of pattern formation and dynamics in nonequilibrium systems sits at the intersection of physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics.
In bistable systems, a stable pattern can invade an unstable one via propagating fronts. In excitable media, solitary waves and spiral waves circulate indefinitely. These dynamics are central to cardiac arrhythmias and cortical spreading depression in neuroscience. pattern formation and dynamics in nonequilibrium systems pdf
Acknowledgments [Funding and acknowledgments] Pattern Formation and Dynamics in Nonequilibrium Systems: A