Haken coined the term "synergetics" to indicate the need for a new field of systematic study of those processes, in which the combined actions of many individual parts, such as the laser at oms, produce a coherent behavior of the whole. In an interview given in 1985 Haken explained:In physics, there is the term "cooperative effects," but it is used mainly for systems in thermal equilibrium. . . . I felt I should coin a term for cooperation [in] systems far from thermal equilib rium. . . . I wanted to emphasize that we need a new discipline for those processes. . . . So, one could see synergetics as a science dealing, perhaps not exclusively, with the phenomenon of self organization.3 2In 1970 Haken published his full nonlinear laser theory in the prestigious German physics encyclopedia Handbuch der Physik. 33 Treating the laser as a self-organizing system far from equilib rium, he showed that the laser action sets in when the strength of the external pumping reaches a certain critical value. Due to a special arrangement of mirrors on both ends of the laser cavity, only light emitted very close to the direction of the laser axis can remain in the cavity long enough to bring about the amplification process, while all other wave trains are eliminated.Haken's theory makes it clear that although the laser needs to be pumped energetically from the outside to remain in a state far from equilibrium, the coordination of emissions is carried out by the laser light itself; it is a process of self-organization. Thus Haken arrived independently at a precise description of a selforganizing phenomenon of the kind Prigogine would call a dissi-.patlve structure.The predictions of laser theory have been verified in great de tail, and due to the pioneering work of Hermann Haken, the laser has become an important tool for the study of self-organization. At a symposium honoring Haken's sixtieth birthday, his collabora tor Robert Graham paid an eloquent tribute to his work:It is one of Haken's great contributions to recognize that lasers are not only extremely important technological tools, but also highly