Hermann Haken , born in 1927, earned his
Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Erlangen. In 1956
he became a Lecturer of Theroretical Physics at that
university. Since 1960 he has been Professor of Theoretical
Physics at the University of Stuttgart. He has been a guest
scientist, consultant, or visiting professor at various
institutions in the United States, Great Britain, France,
Japan, and the USSR. He has made numerous contributions to
group theory,solid-state physics, laser physics and
nonlinear optics, statistical physics, plasma physics,
bifurcation theory, chemical reaction models, and theories
onmorphogenesis. He is author of the momograph Laser Theory,
the texts Synergetics. An Introduction, and Quantum Field
Theory of Solids, and ofvarious other books, including text
books written jointly with H.C. Wolf on The Physics of Atoms
and Quanta as well as on Molecular Physics and Elements of
Quantum Chemistry. In 1976 he was awarded the Max Born Prize
and Medal of the British Instituteof Physics and the German
Physical Society for his outstanding contributions to the
theory of excited states in solids and to quantum optics, in
particular, lasertheory. He recieved the Albert A. Michelson
Medal of the Franklin Institute, USA, in 1981 for his work
on laser theory and his pioneering efforts in synergetics.
In 1982 he received an honorary doctorate from the
University of Essen, in 1987 from the University of Madrid,
in 1992 from the Florida Atlantic University and in 1994
from the University of Regensburg. Among his further awards
are the Max-Planck-Medal of the German Physical Society, the
Honda Prize (Tokyo) and the Lorenz-Oken-Medal of the
Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte. He is a
member of several academies including the Leopoldina, the
BavarianAcademy of Sciences, the Academia Europaea, London,
and the Academia Scientiarum at Artium Europaea, Salzburg.