Book excerpt: Nobel prize winner Ilya Prigogine writes in his preface: "Irreversibility is a challenge to mathematics...[which] leads to generalized functions and to an extension of spectral analysis beyond the conventional Hilbert space theory." Meeting this challenge required new mathematical formulations-obstacles met and largely overcome thanks primarily to the contributors to this volume." This compilation of works grew out of material presented at the "Hyperfunctions, Operator Theory and Dynamical Systems" symposium at the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry in 1997. The result is a coherently organized collective work that moves from general, widely applicable mathematical methods to ever more specialized physical applications. Presented in two sections, part one describes Generalized Functions and Operator Theory, part two addresses Operator Theory and Dynamical Systems. The interplay between mathematics and physics is now more necessary than ever-and more difficult than ever, given the increasing complexity of theories and methods.