FOREWORD

The present issue of our international journal Nonlinear Phenomena in Complex Systems is dedicated to the 75th birthday of Professor Hermann Haken from the University of Stuttgart. We are delighted to share such an opportunity and it is our great pleasure to honour Professor Haken in this way. There are several reasons for this very special occasion.

First, Professor Haken is the founder of the new scientific discipline which he named synergetics, and which deals with complex systems and the emergence of spontaneous order in them - the phenomenon of the so called selforganization. His early work was about the laser theory, but in the course of his scientific thought, Professor Haken quickly realized that his approach to understanding and describing the selforganization in complex systems can be generalized to a vast variety of systems in many different branches of science, not only in physics and chemistry, but also in biology, physiology, sociology, demography and economics, perhaps even in politics (understanding the social political behaviour in different political systems, from democracy to totalitarian regimes and anything else in between). Professor Haken laid down the principles of the new science of synergetics, and he has shown us the way how to quantify and understand the underlying phenomena. Therefore he is probably one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the 20th and 21st centuries, especially as the science of complex systems will be ever expanding and never ending story. His work has helped us to fill the gap between the firm knowledge of mathematics and physics on the one hand, and the phenomenology of other sciences on the other hand, which - through Professor Haken - thus obtained their rigorous mathematical foundations. It is due to his immense scientific opus that studies of complex systems of all fields became quantitative sciences, using the mathematical language to analyze the underlying phenomena.

Second, our journal is specialized to such topics in the interdisciplinary area of nonlinear dynamics, theory of complex systems and synergetics. Since Professor Haken is one of the most eminent members of the international advisory board of our journal, we felt obliged to dedicate one issue to his honour on occasion of his 75th birthday. The initiative came from the Editor-in-Chief Professor Viatcheslav Kuvshinov.

Third, Professor Haken has been the Honorary Director and also the main lecturer of the last three international summer schools and conferences "Let's Face Chaos through Nonlinear Dynamics" (in 1996, 1999 and 2002), in this way dignifying this scientific meeting organized by the CAMTP - Center for Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, at the University of Maribor, Slovenia. In fact the last (5th) summer school and conference was dedicated to his 75th birthday. Since CAMTP is one of the supporting organizations of the journal NPCS, there seems to be a special relationship between him, CAMTP and NPCS as well. It is precisely due to his special noble role in this regard, helping CAMTP and the University of Maribor, that he was awarded the honourable title "Honorary Senator of the University of Maribor", Slovenia, exactly on Friday 12 July 2002, his birthday, as a part of the programme and festivities of the 5th international summer school and conference "Let's Face Chaos through Nonlinear Dynamics". On that very same day, in the evening, we cheerfully celebrated his birthday in a very informal way. We enjoyed a chamber music concert by the Fegus Brothers String Quartet from Maribor, the main speech was delivered by the laudeator Professor Fritz Haake of the University of Essen, and so the wonderful evening was closed by a family-like party under the arcades of the Maribor City Castle. That special warm atmosphere will remain unforgettable forever, and we hope, on the scientific side, that the present issue of NPCS, dedicated to his 75th birthday, will underline his scientific opus in an equally strong way.

In the name of all contributors, colleagues and friends, and in the name of all researchers working worldwide in the field that he has established scientifically, we wish to thank him wholeheartedly for his brilliant scientific work, and wish him very good health and strength in his ongoing and future scientific research work. He is never at rest.

Professor Dr. Marko Robnik, Guest Editor
--- Director of CAMTP ---
--- Director of the Summer Schools/Conferences ---
University of Maribor

Professor Dr. Aneta Stefanovska
--- Member of the Organizing Committee ---
University of Ljubljana

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