Book excerpt: Twentieth-century research in the field of chemical pattern formation saw extraordinary progress due to the pathbreaking contributions of Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine and his co-workers. Evidence exists that the dissipative structures studied by Prigogine and his colleagues may play a dominant role in the processes of self-organization of biological systems, the fundamental phenomena that govern all life forms. Brought together in this valuable volume are topical papers from the this research. Important aspects of nonlinear chemical pattern formation—dissipative structures—in chemical, biochemical, and geological systems are surveyed by leading scientists in the field of nonlinear chemistry. Topics covered include experimental observations of pattern formation in a variety of systems, bifurcation theory and analysis of nonlinear chemical rate equations, and the stochastic theory of nonlinear chemical reactions. Of particular interest are the studies of the effects of electric fields on the determination of nonequilibrium states of chemical systems.