History
Although one can argue that humans have been studying complex systems for thousands of years, the modern scientific study of complex systems is relatively young when compared to conventional science areas with simple system assumption such as physics and chemistry. The history of the scientific study of these systems follows several different research trends.
In the area of mathematics, arguably the largest contribution to the study of complex systems was the discovery of chaos in deterministic systems, a feature of certain dynamical systems that is strongly related to nonlinearity. The study of neural networks was also integral in advancing the mathematics needed to study complex systems.
The notion of self-organizing systems is tied up to work in nonequilibrium thermodynamics, including that pioneered by chemist and Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine in his study of dissipative structures.
Read more about this topic: Complex System
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“Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)