This text will be replaced by the correThis book is aimed to a broad audience of researchers and students who are interested in questions of structure formation in complex systems in nature and society.

This book is aimed to a broad audience of researchers and students who are interested in questions of structure formation in complex systems in nature and society. When we think of synergetics, impressive images of complex structures immediately come to mind. Such images serve us as starting point and guide for understanding structure formation in chemical, biological, physical, geological, and social systems.

Many fascinating pictures of new experimental results illustrate the imagery of synergetics and at the same time enable precise statements about the underlying laws based on precise and discussed measurements. In this way, for example, the famous Runge pictures are accessible to a physico-chemical description, and it turns out that the well-known disintegration of the beer foam satisfies a consecutive kinetics with feedback. The modeling by means of cellular automata and iterated function systems enables us to study the cooperative character of pattern formation on sea shells on the one hand but also to show that creativity is a cooperative effect.