Ilya Prigogine was a Russian-born Belgian physical chemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1977 for his contributions to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures. He was also renowned for his work on complex systems and irreversibility. Born in Russia shortly before the Russian Revolution of 1917, he moved to Belgium with his family when he was a young boy. As a student he was more interested in history and archaeology but fate led him to choose chemistry. After receiving his undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemistry from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, he embarked on an academic career, becoming a professor at his alma mater. He performed vital research in chemistry following the World War II and devised mathematical models that showed how chemical reactions could produce complex, changing patterns that he termed “dissipative structures.” It was his research on the role of these structures in thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium that earned him the Nobel Prize. He is also credited to have developed the basis of the two fluid model in collaboration with Robert Herman. In the later part of his career, he focused on the fundamental role of Indeterminism in nonlinear systems on both the classical and quantum level.