Ilya Prigogine. Portrait of Ilya Prigogine (born 1917), Russian-Belgian theoretical chemist and Nobel Laureate. Although born in Russia, Prigogine was educated at Brussels, Belgium, from the age of 12. Prigogine published Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes in 1955, in which he pointed out the flaws of classical thermodynamics. He developed mathematical models for irreversible thermodynamic processes and for systems far from equilibrium. The concept of the 'dissipative structure' of Prigogine has been successfully applied to a wide range of chemical and biological systems. Prigogine was awarded the 1977 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.